M. Butterfly: Reborn

MANILA, Philippines — Twenty-eight years after RS Francisco breathed life to Song Liling in the Philippine production of the Tony Award-winning play M. Butterfly, the award-winning actor is back – excited to reprise the role that will give love a bad name, power an uncomfortable bearing and deception a stabbing feel.

Love, power and deception will take center stage at the Maybank Performing Arts Theater in BGC when the curtains rise for the restaging of David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly from Sept. 13 to 30.

“Although we will be using a similar storyline and I will be playing the same character, this staging of M. Butterfly will certainly offer different attacks, characterizations and nuances. It will be very different from what audiences remembered from before when I portrayed Song Liling for Dulaang UP in 1990,” begins RS, who is producing the show through his highly successful multi-level marketing company Frontrow that distributes health and beauty supplements.

RS adds, “The difference in how I portray Song Liling will rely heavily on how much I’ve matured and experienced as a person compared to when I first played the role almost 30 years ago (when I was in my late teens). All together, this re-staging will bring to the audience a riper, more sophisticated and more philosophical Song Liling.”

Photos by Raymund Isaac

“M. Butterfly is about the great wall of illusion that envelops us all. Gallimard’s Western bias to the East made him fall for this illusion, by perhaps the greatest actor the world has ever known, Song Liling,” says Kanakan Balintagos, the director of M. Butterfly.

Kanakan used to be known as Auraeus Solito, the filmmaker who made acclaimed hits like Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros, Busong and Pisay. He changed his name to give honor to his mom’s  indigenous roots in South Palawan. She comes from a lineage of shaman-chieftains from the Palawán (the first peoples of Palawan). Kanakan Balintagos is his tribal name.

“It is loosely based on the scandalous true-to-life love affair of a French diplomat and a Chinese opera singer in 1986. Originally by David Henry Hwang, this controversial play immediately bagged a Tony Award when it was first staged in Broadway in 1988,” adds RS, who won as best actor for Bhoy Intsik at the 34th Star Awards for Movies.

RS says that he and his M. Butterfly co-producer Jhett Tolentino personally chose Kanakan to helm the production because he is not a “generic director.”

Jhett is reportedly the boy from the slums of Iloilo who has made it big in New York by producing acclaimed Broadway plays. In 2013, he produced the Tony Award-winning play Vanya and Sonya and Masha and Spike. In 2014, Jhett bagged two Tony Awards, A Raisin in the Sun for best revival of a play and A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder for best musical. He also produced The Color Purple that won the Grammy Award best musical theater album.

The cast with the director and star/producer at a rehearsal.

“What are the challenges in directing M. Butterfly?” STARweek asks Kanakan when it is privy to a play rehearsal in a club house in New Manila one night.

“I have always had a need to surpass myself. In M. Butterfly, each scene breaks from the Aristotelian unities of action, time and space. I aimed to be true to its history but even though it is based on a true story, I broke away from this fact and instead focused on the play as a play – as a piece of great writing in theater. Honestly, each day I discover how great this Tony Award-winning play is, and how universal its themes are. It must be the most challenging piece of literature that I have ever directed. But I did it and finished all the blocking in three weeks (after one week of intensive readings),” says Kanakan, who started his career in theater directing when he helmed Chris Millado’s Ang Nazarena in college. He discovered his talent in directing early on when he was a student at the Philippine Science High School with his theater interpretations of Noli and Fili.

How the lives of RS, Kanakan and Jhett are intertwined is another story to tell. Because of their interconnection, M. Butterfly was born anew on Philippine stage.

“My participation with M. Butterfly started after RS Francisco messaged me on Facebook about the musical I produced in New York, Here Lies Love. I wasn’t familiar with who RS was so I asked around and most of the people answered ‘You don’t know who RS is???’ Note the three question marks, which signified RS is someone I should know. So I entertained his inquiry and we began talking about my projects. I invited him to come with me to the 2017 Tony Awards in New York, which he attended with Tim Yap. That was the first time we met and he opened up the idea of reprising his role as Song Liling. Forward to a year later, and here we are,” Jhett recalls.

They also talked to David Henry Hwang to secure the rights of M. Butterfly. “David Henry Hwang is a colleague on Broadway. A close one since there are hardly any Asians in the business side of the industry,” Jhett says.

RS Francisco as Song Liling and Olivier Borten as Rene Gallimard.

It was also through Facebook that the talk about restaging M. Butterfly came about for RS and Kanakan. Though they had been friends for a while on FB, they never exchanged messages. Until Kanakan, who loves his mother to the hilt, felt the necessity to connect with RS for one reason that was totally unrelated to theater.

“I messaged RS last year if he could send my mom some of his anti-oxidants (from Frontrow) for her birthday. Magically, he mentioned that he has always been a fan of my work and he mentioned the possibility of M. Butterfly. Now the possibility is a reality. It is happening at the moment,” Kanakan smiles.

RS and Kanakan were classmates in Tony Mabesa’s Theater Arts (Directing) class in 1990 in UP Diliman (RS started as a BA Communication Arts student in UP Los Baños and became part of the art-oriented group called UPLB Com Arts Society). It was in that class that RS was reborn, so to speak, because, according to Kanakan, that class “would eventually be the catalyst for him to get the part for M. Butterfly,” which was produced and directed by Mabesa for Dulaang UP.

“I’m ecstatic to be given the golden opportunity to relive my most memorable role by far. Although I’ve fallen in love with each and every role that I’ve portrayed in my years of acting, Song Liling symbolizes a coming of age for me. This role put my name out in the theater world. Now that I am doing it again, I feel much more responsible for the outcome of this production and I also feel blessed that I’ll be able to help others by doing what I’m most passionate about, which is acting,” says RS.

The still photographs for M. Butterfly were shot in Beijing by Raymund Isaac.

RS informs us that M. Butterfly is 100-percent profit giveaway. All proceeds, minus of course the entertainment taxes, will go to the production’s 23 chosen charities and institutions, including Dulaang UP, Love Yourself Foundation, Hope for Change, Trip to Quiapo, Philippine Stages Foundation and Philippine Science High School.

“Why not leave something for yourself?” STARweek asks RS.

“With Frontrow, God has given me a lot blessings. And I know how to be in need. I was once at the receiving end. I know the feeling of not having anything. I wasn’t rich. It’s time to give back. I’m using M. Butterfly as a vehicle to help,” says RS, whose Frontrow company had been moving silently in the past in its many advocacy projects.

Jhett sings the same tune. He was a poor boy from the slums of Iloilo who grew up “around drugs and prostitution.” And he made it to New York. “It is always good to give back,” says Jhett, whose documentary about his life titled Life Is What You Make It was shown at the recently concluded Cinemalaya film festival.

So, when M. Butterfly flutters around the stage of Maybank Performing Arts Theater next month, expect the production to challenge the mind. And the heart.

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For tickets, call TicketWorld at 891-9999, or visit www.ticketworld.com.ph.

The trio behind this revival of David Henry Hwang’s acclaimed play M. Butterfly (from left): director Kanakan Balintagos, producer and star RS Francisco, co-producer Jhett Tolentino.