M. Butterfly is a play written by David Henry Hwang who is a Chinese American playwright. Hwang is really good at blending Chinese elements into Western style plays and M. Butterfly is one of his representative works. It basically tells a story between a French diplomacy, Rene Gallimard and a Chinese opera actor Song Liling. Gallimard fell in love with Song Liling when he first saw him playing on the stage as the character of "Madam Butterfly". He then built romantic relationship with Song regardless his French wife. However, the 20-year relationship turned out to be just a fraud and Gallimard commit suicide after he knew the truth. The play meanly satirizes the unrealistic stereotypes that western people hold in their minds towards oriental women.
The poster image is quite simple but attractive: a big red butterfly impaled by a capital M. From the poster, we can actually see multiple messages about the play. First of all, the image clearly indicates the title of the play--M. Butterfly, which is also listed at the bottom. People who have heard about this play before might come up with the name without even look at the text at the bottom. The texture of the image shows some information as well. The ink marks are often associated with Chinese brush drawing, which in a sense implies the Chinese elements (Chinese opera) include in the play.
Moreover, the topic of M. Butterfly is partially revealed by this poster. Even though the image contains a beautiful red butterfly, the overall feeling that the poster provide to people is still uncomfortable and even cruel. The capital letter M impales the wings of the butterfly just like knifes. With the color of bright red, it's very likely for people who are viewing this poster think of the concept of death. In the play, a death scene does appear at the end. The poster clearly indicates that M. Butterfly is a cruel tragedy instead of comedy.
Despite what I mentioned above about the red color, there is even more to discuss on the choice of colors, and they contain further information towards gender issues in the play. There are mainly three colors appear on the poster: red, black, and white. White can be considered as its big background. So what about red and black? Thinking about what each color represents. The color red usually represent female, and by contrast black often represents male. In the play, Song is a Chinese opera actor who shows up as a female character most of the time. However, at the end audiences will know that he is actually a male. Such an unexpected gender transformation of the character becomes the most impressive reversal of the play. The poster, as we can see, implicitly reveals the topic of gender. The character Song Liling, who can be seen as the butterfly, has woman's appearance (red wings) and man's body (black body). The title M. Butterfly was also filled with both red and black which indicates the same meaning.
Overall, this poster is a successful one. It follows most of the principles of design such as emphasis, contrast, and balance. It is also concise enough, yet its striking image can catch people's attentions easily. The idea of unrealistic fantasy and cruel reality are both reflected on this poster, which makes it a more meaningful piece. By providing people with sufficient information while leaving some spaces for open imaginations, this poster can definitely attract audiences to attend to the formal show when it opens in October.
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