GOLDEN CHILD SILK ROAD THEATRE PROJECT
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As he did in his best-known play, the 1988 Broadway hit M. Butterfly, Hwang analyzes the way complex, conflicting, and sometimes soul-warping concepts of male and female dominance and submission shape domestic life in Asian and European cultures. M. Butterfly tells the fact-based story of a French diplomat whose passion for the image of fragile Asian femininity draws him into a disastrous affair with a Chinese opera singer–who turns out to be a female impersonator and communist spy. In Golden Child, Tieng-Bin is torn between Christian and traditional Chinese notions of virtuous male-female relations. Should marriage be defined as the union of one man and one woman? Or does polygamy serve essential social and moral needs as well as sexual ones? And how does polygamy affect not only the husband’s master-servant relationship with his wives but the wives’ hierarchical relationships with one another?
Siu-Yong’s younger “sisters” are more inclined to change and survive. Luan, the second wife, was sold into the marriage after her family lost its fortune. She understands that if her husband turns Christian he’ll choose a single spouse–and she intends to make sure it’s her. But pretty young third wife Eling–a peasant who came into the house as Luan’s servant–is by far Tieng-Bin’s favorite, the only one of the three he married for love.
