David Henry Hwang & M. Butterfly

1. David Henry Hwang & M. Butterfly

2. David Henry Hwang • Born in Los Angeles in 1957. • Studied drama at Yale & Stanford. • Wrote M. Butterfly in 1988; it premiered on Broadway starring John Lithgow and BD Wong. • Became the first Asian American to win a Tony Award.

3. Puccini’s Madame Butterfly • Premiered at Milan’s La Scala opera house in 1904. • The plot is as recited in M. Butterfly—an American diplomat “marries” a Japanese woman for convenience, leaves her pining for 3 years, and comes back only to collect his son from her. She kills herself. • On of the most often performed operas in the world today.

4. Intertextuality • “The need for one text to be read in the light of its allusions to and differences from the content or structure of other texts; the (allusive) relationship between esp. literary texts” (OED).

5. Bernard Boursicot • The play is based on the true story of Bernard Boursicot, a French diplomat to China who was seduced by Shi Pei Pu and was blackmailed into passing classified documents to him. • Shi procured a “son” for them named Shi Dudu. • Both Shi & Boursicot were sentenced to 6 years in prison, and both were pardoned early. • After his release, Boursicot settled down with a male partner. • After being released from prison, Shi is quoted as saying, “I used to fascinate both men and women. What I was and what they were didn’t matter,” and Boursicot is quoted as saying, “When I believed it, it was a beautiful story.”

6. Meta-Drama • Drama in which the author self-consciously alludes to the artificiality or literariness of a work by parodying or departing from dramatic conventions and narrative/performative techniques. • Related to “breaking the fourth wall.”