Relentlessly cheerful in the face of certain disappointment, the heroine disregards the advice of everyone around her to dump the cad and marry the rich and handsome Yamodori (Ben Chau, who looked rich and is handsome), which was eminently sensible advice -- especially to a former geisha. But maybe no one ever told the author what geishas actually did for a living when he wrote the play in 1900.
Properly clapping her hands to push around her last remaining servant. Suzuki -- the requisite Sancho Panza to the quixotic Butterfly (Mehr Mansuri) -- Cho Cho San plans her Pinkerton's return, then valiantly tries to maintain her dignity in the light of heavy-handed patronizing from Pinkerton's wife (Liza Case), who arrived in a red ball gown possibly from a waxworks exhibition, wearing a dead bird on her hat. (All the non-Japanese costumes were ill-fitting, soiled, or somewhat ludicrous.)
James Jenner as the American Consul moved as if every bone ached, and he never lost his scowl. His pony tail flowing over a l9th-Century black frock coat of a diplomat was unexplained.
Acting by other members of the cast (Ryohei Hoshi as a retainer and Domenic O'Neill as the handsome Pinkerton) and the lighting were adequate. The amplified sound was too low.
The play's passion was bottled up in the well-mannered, Asian style, where nobody displays much emotion. To remedy this fatal flaw, the director created a new scene at the beginning of the play to insert a threat of violence. It was like starting the play with an eruption of Mount Fuji, then sliding down the mountainside. By the time the preparation for Pinkerton's appearance arrived, with all the ceremonial waiting for Butterfly's warship to come in (the scattering of flowers, and the painting of faces), and no humming chorus in sight, the direction simply stopped the action cold.
The whole play took less than an hour to perform, although it seemed like days, unbroken by a 10-minute intermission promised in the program -- probably shrewdly eliminated by the producers.
Like the venerable Queen Mary, now birthed as a museum in Long Beach, California, Madame Butterfly, The Play, has probably sailed its last -- with Puccini at the helm. Recommissioning is not advised.
Copyright 1999 Marshall Yaeger