mundane-excitement.

Hi :)

You left your Tumblr account logged on. Lol. Um. Yeah.

I’m so nice…!

# 8- Mirror Mirror.

Unlike the previous picture, the gender of this figure is unclear. Although the figure has a pair of feminine butterfly wings, it can be a male or a female.

I parallel this figure with Gallimard. Gallimard is a man of tragedy. I pity his foolishness. I pity his blind belief in love. At the beginning, Gallimard is brained washed by the play M. Butterfly. He thinks that all foreign men can control Asian lotus blossoms. He fancies his fantasy. He even incorporates this fairy tale into his real life by believing that Song is his Butterfly. It isn’t until the end that Gallimard realizes that Song is a man. Like a mirror reflection, Gallimard admires the beauty of this butterfly who is so vulnerable, delicate, and wanting to be empowered. Sadly, this mirror of illusion broke like a dream and showed the grotesque identity of Gallimard- the Butterfly.

#7- Wings of a Butterfly.

I found some beautiful pictures on a website that fitted with the theme of Butterfly.

A female figure with wings displayed in this picture. We can tell that it is a female due to the curvy contour of the body, her hair, and her fragile movement. This picture portrayed the Japanese Butterfly in the original play. We could imagine her as an innocent, powerless, beautiful Asian woman who bear the heavy cost of the butterfly wings- lifelong commitment with a foreigner. The female figure showed difficulties in taking off the land with her heavy wings. Similarly, the wings made Butterfly beautiful, but they also caused her death and lost her freedom. Butterfly had a pair of wings, a new identity that she never had before she met Pinkerton. However, this pair of wings disconnected her root and her ancestry. This pair of wings did not take her to land anywhere. Poor Butterfly flew away with her heavy wings to chase her non-existent destination-Pinkerton’s love.

Lastly, as we pay a closer attention to this picture, we can see that it was set in a sepia tone. It brought the feeling of the passed time and memory. However, the cracks on this picture ruined the melancholic mood of this picture and brought the audiences back to reality.

#5- Editor.

During the last class with Marshall, we learned to perfect our play performance by adjusting the male and female gesture. We were very lucky to have David and Nancy to demonstrate the behavior of the opposite sex. We laughed a lot of course. However, when it came down to the real business, difficulties arose.

This play was different from the previous. We had a bigger group that composed of actors, editor, costume adviser and audience. With more brains around, all groups did surprisingly well compared to the previous plays. In my group, i had Bryan to be Helga, Monique to be Gallimard, and Lynette to be Marc. We purposely switched all the genders because we wanted to test our ability to portray a different sex. Bryan tried very hard to be a female by raising his voice in an octave higher than usual. He also had a scarf to cover his adam apple. Most importantly, he incorporated modern girls movement when they are mad by snapping his finger across Monique’s face. On the other hand, Monique and Lynette acted manly by lowering their voices, having big movement, and wearing baggy clothes.

From this activity, I thought it could be improved by having Byran to speak with a softer voice instead of raising his pitch. At a very high pitch, he had to breathe big breath to say his lines. I noticed that in other group, Zan acted Song without raising his voice. Instead, he softened his voice and acted shyly. It turned out great! By being an editor, i learnt to know how to make my actors act more comfortably and naturally.

# 4- Act it out.

After reading M. Butterfly, we had to perform a scene with a partner. I happened to be partnered with Francis to play the 8th scene of Act 1. In this scene, Francis was Gallimard and I was Song. At this point of the story, Song tries to seduce Gallimard. She surprises him with her forward action of an Asian. Gallimard has to act surprised, clueless, and desired. I felt uncomfortable to act Song because I had to flirt. I was a shy person so it was a challenge for me to act forward in a relationship. In this scene, Song asked Gallimard to light her cigarette. I needed a cigarette as a prop. Some of my classmates offered me but i rejected because I hated cigarettes. I had opposite personalities as Song. In the end, i decided to roll up a paper into a size of a cigarette instead of using the real one.

This activity concluded that i wasn’t an actress. I admitted it. I did a bad job in being Song because I let my personality to hold against her. I am sorry Francis. : (

#2- Love-Hate

I posted some quotes that I love from this script.

“Sometimes I hate you. Sometimes I hate myself. But always, I miss you.” - Song. [Q]

This quote might appear shallow to some people, but it hit me hard when I first read it. It hooked me wanting to know more about the story. Perhaps, this quote was powerful because everyone has experienced it at some point of his/her life.

At first when I read this quote, I imagined Song as the stereotypical shallow girl in those chick flick movies. Nowadays, ” I love you”, ” i hate you”, and ” i miss you” are overly used and exploited. They are even simplified to some blog language. For example, “ily as I love you”. I am amazed how these feelings can be simplified just like that and how people can blurt out these phrases like ” Hellos” and ” Goodbyes”. To me, you only say those phrase when you mean it from your heart. That’s why, I never said ” i love you” to a crush or to anyone who I know for a short time. In fact,  I only said it a few times because such power words were difficult to say.

Love makes hatred. In fact, differences between these two feelings lay on a thin line. I see people falling madly in love with their enemies. After a break up, the heart-breaking person who gets dumped will hate the heartless dumper. However, both side will linger on the pain and memories that they miss to have. Therefore, it is a confusing situation for Song. She hates Gallimard for treating her hot and cold; She hates him that he viewed work as the first and treated her the second. With all these reasons, Song could have left him but she couldn’t. Therefore, she moved this hatred to herself, her inability to forget and move on. Somehow, she felt ashamed to be Gallimard’s naive butterfly. She knew that her story would be a beautiful tragedy, a dream, but she insisted to the author of her fantasy. Despite the conflict, she missed him always. At this point, readers understood that Song was trapped in Gallimard’s play. Even though she had to play her thoughts back and forward as a lover and hater, she could not get out. Standing in between is the most difficult part of a love life. Song was going through hard times at this point of the script.

#1-M. Butterfly’s failure.

It is 3:26 am, and I am about to write blog 1 for my english assignment. I have to start writing because this blog will be due in less than 24 hours. Right now, my mind is still empty. M. Butterfly, what can i write about this script? Well, I was mad that I failed the M. Butterfly quiz that was given a few days ago. I was mad not because of Marshal of course, but the fact that I failed.

I remembered that Uyen and I spent our night time hours sitting on the floor of Border Bookstore to read this script until 9 pm. She passed the quiz and I failed. I guessed it was because I skimmed the details and only focused on the story line. It was the emotions of the story that made me turn a page. I was attached to Butterfly’s feeling when she found out about Pinkerton’s wife. I could picture the intense moment of confession between Gallimard and Helga. These parts of the story were emotional and heart breaking. It made me reminisce my past and connect myself to the story. Perhaps that was the reason why i failed the quiz. Being fully immersed into the sensational part of the story, names and places in M. Butterfly seemed unimportant.