Chicago Tribune - Not Recommended
"...Many talented people are at work here, including the actor Karen Woditsch (the most adept at cutting through the concept into some kind of reality), Terry Hamilton, Emjoy Gavino, Laura Coover and Mark Montgomery. There is distinctive and arresting choreography by Jamie Guan. But the story, which is a great and complex narrative, falls away like petals from a lovely tree."
Chicago Reader - Not Recommended
"...The overly broad performances in Newell's unrelentingly emphatic production exacerbate the script's schematic feel, erasing any residual ambiguity from the play. Even the usually compelling Sean Fortunato as Gallimard repeatedly ratchets up the anguish to a grotesque level that invites little empathy. Newell also clutters most every scene with inexpressive peripheral stage business-a trio of Kurogo dancers shuffle props around, out-of-scene characters lurk upstage. For no clear reason, all the characters speak in appropriate accents-French, Chinese, or German-except Gallimard. Scenic designer Todd Rosenthal inexplicably plants a rusty sink in the middle of the stage as if it were the play's central metaphor. And although act two ends with Butterfly telling audience members to go out and stretch their legs while she changes costumes, Newell instead holds us captive, planting actors in the aisles to hum along to prerecorded music and stranding Gallimard center stage to give long, pained looks at a kimono."
Centerstage - Recommended
"...Braga does a nice job as Liling. He plays the character as very on display, with cards on sleeve. This works well in moments of audience asides, but less well in more intimate scenes. Hwang’s play is so good you can’t help but get caught up in the story. It felt wonderful to be swept up into something. And a huge sense of catharsis is achieved in the emotionally bare final scene, in which everything comes full circle on Gallimard. I was transfixed by the transformation undergone by the character. I just wish I would’ve known what to look at during everything that came before."
Gapers Block - Somewhat Recommended
"...M. Butterfly is a complex play with characters who are not what they seem and who may not act as they should. It's a tragedy with some occasionally witty dialogue. But apparently the audience at Court Theatre's opening night thought it was a comedy with a bit of slapstick and broad humor. The audience hoots and guffaws were disconcerting as this tragic story progressed."
Chicago On the Aisle - Somewhat Recommended
"...David Henry Hwang's fantastical play "M. Butterfly" at Court Theatre begins as the imprisoned Frenchman Rene Gallimard relives his encounter long ago with a mesmerizing Peking Opera artist, who is performing a bit from Puccini's opera "Madama Butterfly." The artist plays a delicate geisha, tragically steadfast in love with an American naval lieutenant, who's a cad."
ChicagoCritic - Recommended
"...David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly, is gem of a play. It is a layered love story that covers themes like East verses West culture, men verses women and fantasy love verses reality. Loosely following Madama Butterfly and an actual French case of a diplomat being convicted of falling in love with a Chinese opera star who was a spy, M. Butterfly is a stunning piece of dramatic theatre that has elements of spectacle and sprinklings comedy."
Chicago Stage and Screen - Recommended
"...Yet it is always a pleasure to see a great play performed live, and I was excited to hear Hwang's text spoken so eloquently. And while there have been earthquakes in our understanding of gender issues since the play premiered, his accurate description of matters of the heart make it worth viewing again."
Around The Town Chicago - Highly Recommended
"...The Court Theatre closes its 2013-2014 season with the Chicago premiere of M. Butterfly written by David Hwang and directed by Artistic Director Charles Newell, with choreography by Jamie Guan. This Tony Award winning play first opened on Broadway in 1988 and has captivated audiences ever since. M. Butterfly is an exquisitely delicate and aggressively original play about sex, espionage, and Imperialism. Skillfully intertwining the story of Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly with an extraordinary plot inspired by true events, M. Butterfly untangles the story of Rene Gallimard, a meek French civil servant who meets the woman of his dreams in Song Liling, a beautiful, Chinese opera diva. What Gallimard doesn’t realize—or refuses to see—is that his “modest Chinese girl” may be much more than she appears. M. Butterfly has become a post-modern classic whose exploration of the sexual politics of East and West continues to resonate today."
Chicagoland Theater Reviews - Recommended
"...“M. Butterfly” asks the audience to accept a love story in which a French career diplomat takes a Chinese opera diva as his mistress for 20 years, unaware that the diva is actually a man. Truth being stranger than fiction, the story is based on a real life affair that David Henry Hwang adapted into an ambitious, stimulating, frustrating play, now receiving a highly charged production at the Court Theatre."
