M. Butterfly
Closed 2h 0m
M. Butterfly
76

M. Butterfly NYC Reviews and Tickets

76%
(333 Ratings)
Positive
78%
Mixed
18%
Negative
4%
Members say
Great acting, Absorbing, Thought-provoking, Ambitious, Disappointing

About the Show

David Henry Hwang's Tony Award-winning play comes back to Broadway in a new production directed by Tony Award-winner Julie Taymor and starring Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe Award winner Clive Owen.

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Show-Score Member Reviews (333)

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66 Reviews | 23 Followers
92
Absorbing, Clever, Entertaining, Great acting, Ambitious

See it if Clive Owen is amazing. His voice and stage presence carry the show well and Jin Ha is strongly convincing in the role.

Don't see it if The production tries to be inventive and it fails at times, but overall the show is about Clive. See it if a fan.

118 Reviews | 9 Followers
90
Absorbing, Great acting, Great staging, Great writing, Thought-provoking

See it if you enjoy story lines where the audience gets a compassionate perspective to a character's unconventional decisions.

Don't see it if you are offended by nudity.

55 Reviews | 4 Followers
90
Clever, Edgy, Entertaining, Thought-provoking

See it if you are not afraid of theatre. Great staging and wonderfully acted. Tough story to tell, but executed beautifully

Don't see it if you like summer blockbusters

203 Reviews | 49 Followers
90
Absorbing, Magnificent acting, Riveting, Intense, Edgy

See it if you like MAGNIFICENT acting. Clive Owen commands the stage, turning in a performance that should be the text book for actors everywhere.

Don't see it if you don't want a gender-bending story that will leave you confused, nudity or staging that has been highly criticized. Read more

1170 Reviews | 465 Followers
90
Visually stunning, Absorbing, Clever, Intriguing, Entertaining

See it if You’ve never seen it before. I have a feeling you’ll appreciate this best if you’re not comparing it to a previous production. I loved it.

Don't see it if you’re not willing to think a little outside the box. Julie Taymor’s direction is visually pretty busy for a play. Might distract. I loved.

407 Reviews | 66 Followers
89
Absorbing, Ambitious, Great staging, Great acting, Profound

See it if You enjoy timely gender bending dramas with two excellent performers

Don't see it if If you are offended by gender bending true stories

66 Reviews | 14 Followers
89
Absorbing, Great acting

See it if You want a good day at the theatre. Appreciate how unique sets add to a thought provoking story. Engrossing

Don't see it if You do not like surprises.

121 Reviews | 26 Followers
89
Exquisite, Great acting, Great staging, Intense, Masterful

See it if you want to see a brilliant piece of theatre that was performed as it always should have been!

Don't see it if you don't want to be challenged by another point of view.

Critic Reviews (53)

Chicago Tribune
October 26th, 2017

"The revision of the script is very savvy and potent. But it doesn't solve all the problems with Taymor's revival, which begin with Owen's invulnerability...You do believe Ha, whose very sophisticated, disciplined and nuanced performance is the highlight of a production that embraces a whole variety of styles without ever really committing to a fully consistent point of view...Such scenes require an unstinting embrace of emotional truth — places that this production seems reluctant to go."
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Entertainment Weekly
October 26th, 2017

"Success here hinges on pinning the right Butterfly...Julie Taymor’s take meets that challenge with the casting of newcomer Jin Ha in a fearless, confrontational, and often seductive turn as the diva...Spared the pressure of keeping a spoiler under wraps, this revised 'Butterfly' has room to expand its political parable, and more deeply explore Song’s backstory."
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AM New York
October 26th, 2017

"Oh lord, what have David Henry Hwang and Julie Taymor done to 'M. Butterfly'?...Its seriously misguided and marred Broadway revival contains extensive, unnecessary and mostly detrimental rewrites...Visually, the production is a mess...Likewise, Hwang’s meandering and confusing rewrites bring the suspenseful pace to a halt...The play was ripe for revival — and it has instead been ripped apart."
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NY1
October 27th, 2017

"The complex issues so elegantly evoked on the page don’t translate quite as well in this current revival...The production is fluid but inconsistent and surprisingly lackluster...The staging looked more prosaic than operatic...Owen is a terrific actor. This movie stud, completely transformed into a social misfit on that stage, pulls off quite the metamorphosis. So strong is Hwang's writing, ‘M. Butterfly’ is riveting theatre, even when the production fails to fully take wing.”
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Theatermania
October 26th, 2017

"Taymor's stylish revival attempts to seduce us into belief, to make its gender-play seem not only plausible but understandable...Ha's believably feminine performance undergirds our uncertainty...Taymor artfully constructs Gallimard's orientalist dream...Minor quibbles about the play's occasionally sluggish pace shouldn't obscure the point that no other director comes close to Taymor's magpie talent for incorporating diverse theatrical forms into a singular vision."
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Lighting & Sound America
October 27th, 2017

“The thrill is diminished, in part thanks to a miscast star and a busy, bustling production that, too often, seems interested in pageantry for its own sake...Taymor has gotten Hwang to revise the script, filling it with unnecessary details...The original script is a solid piece of construction leavened by considerable wit and ideas that still provoke and stimulate; by adding all this froufrou, a once-powerful drama now packs all the sting of, well, a butterfly.”
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Talkin' Broadway
October 26th, 2017

"In terms of food for thought, 'M. Butterfly' is a veritable smorgasbord, even richer now...We get a highly intelligent, beautifully calibrated, fully committed performance by Jin Ha...That said, Clive Owen offers a surprisingly dry and flat characterization of Gallimard...'M. Butterfly' still packs a wallop—even, as it turns out, in a production that features a wan performance in one of the two central roles, and even though the element of surprise has inevitably been lost over the decades."
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Broadway News
October 26th, 2017

"Despite Taymor’s infusions of stylish pageantry – or possibly, in part, because of them — the play’s emotional core seems to have been hollowed out...Taymor’s plodding, sometimes fussy staging, coupled with Hwang’s revised version of the play, ultimately leave a wearying, watery impression...This production tends to underline the play’s flaws, notably Hwang’s sometimes over-explicit writing."
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