Julie Taymor 'M. Butterfly' Revival Rumors Cause a Buzz on the Great White Way

Making the Broadway rumor rounds this week are whispers of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark and The Lion King director Julie Taymor reviving David Henry Hwang's 1988 play, M. Butterfly.

Hwang's M. Butterfly adapts Italian playwright Giacomo Puccini's famed Madama Butterfly as historical fiction led by French diplomat Bernard Boursicot and Chinese opera singer Shi Pei Pu, a mirror to Puccini's tale of American sailor B. F. Pinkerton and Japanese debutante Cio-Cio San.

Playbill magazine notes that Ms. Taymor's "last Broadway outing was the much-in-the-news" Spider-Man, a production plagued with persistent technical difficulties and slow ticket sales.

Will Taymor's return from the Spider-Man washout be Hwang's Butterfly? The New York Post broke the news last week of Taymor's Broadway comeback in an exclusive interview with the director:

"Oh, I'm coming back, but it hasn't been announced yet. But you'll see me next spring or next winter ... People are spending so much time on their computers and phones. Theatre's got something those things don't have -- it's got scale and it's got dimension. Virtual reality? I'd rather be there with a bunch of people and have the virtual reality [be] reality around me!"

NewYorkTheatreGuide.com recounted the achievements of the original M. Butterfly production:

"The production would mark the first major New York revival of the Pulitzer Prize finalist play, which won the Tony Award for Best Play in 1988 and also earned director John Dexter a Tony for Best Direction of a Play and B. D. Wong a Tony for Best Featured Actor in a Play. The play also earned Tony nominations for scenic, costume and lighting design and a Best Actor in a Play nod for John Lithgow."

M. Butterfly stands among a select group of revered modern works artistically indebted to Puccini's Madama Butterfly, itself based on American writer John Luther Long's 1898 short story Madame Butterfly. As we previously reported on our sister site Classicalite, alternative rock band Weezer again revived the Butterfly influence nearly a century later with their sophomore album, Pinkerton.

TagsJulie Taymor, David Henry Hwang, Giacomo Puccini, Weezer, Madama Butterfly