Focus: Acting:
During Week #2 we will do Project 2,
plus read M. Butterfly:

M. BUTTERFLY
Project 2: ACTING
M. BUTTERFLY

  1. What's the significance of the scene where Helga tells Gaillimard she wants him to go to a doctor and get some medical tests (p. 40)?

  2. What's the significance of Song's name?

  3. Why is Gallimard's "it was her tears and silence that excited me, every time I vistied Renee" an important line?

  4. What ultimately fuels Gallimard's fantasy?

  5. At one point (p. 10) Gallimard feels he has transcended the Pinkerton image, saying for example,

    "the image sickened me, pulled me to my knees so I was crawling towards her like a worm. By the time I reached her, Pinkerton had vanished from my heart. To be replaced by something new, something unnatural, that flew in the face of all I'd learned in the world--something very close to love (p. 47)."

    Is what he says really true; has he separated himself from the Pinketon image?

  6. What is the significance of the window images (see p. 14 and p. 24).

  7. What's the significance of the very opening of the play when we see a shift from the Peking Opera to the Love Duet from Puccini's Madame Butterfly ?

  8. What's the significance of the character Song saying "as a Japanese woman? The Japanese used hundreds of our people for medical experiments during the war. But I gather that irony is lost on you?"

  9. What is the significance of Gaillimard mentioning his "ideal audience?"

  10. What's the significance of the title?

  11. What's the significance of Gaillimard's and Song's first meeting? Gaillimard at one point says that he feels power. Why is this a significant contrast from his past self-image?

  12. What is the significance of the butterfly image?

  13. What is the significance of Song saying, "How can you objectively judge your own values?"

  14. What is the significance of the fact that Gaillimard and Marc share an expensive bottle of wine?

  15. What is the significance that the Vietnam war forms the background of the play?

  16. What is the significance of the following line said by Song, "Now I see--we are always most revolted by the things hidden within us"?

  17. Why is it significant that the play begins and ends in a prison cell?

  18. What is the purpose of the Brechtian touches?

  19. What is the point of the scene where Song steps out of the witness box?

  20. What, then, is the ultimate point of the play?

PROJECT 2: ACTING
  1. Project 2 focuses around performing a two person open scene. What exactly is an open scene?

  2. Are open scenes really completely "open?"

  3. What is the value of an open scene in terms of actor training?

  4. What do the terms subtext and inner dialogue mean?

  5. Why has subtext to do with the fact the actors are not allowed to change the dailogue; why when you perform the open scene are you instructed not to change so much as a single word?

  6. What has subtext to do with the fact in performing open scenes, actors often creat very effective silent sequences.

  7. Why are given circumstances and objectives vitally important to actors? Actors frequently create tactics for their characters; how are a character's tactics directly related to the character's objective?