Ladyboy Butterfly comes to Islington

[Shana A]

Ladyboy Butterfly comes to Islington
Date: 10 December 2010

http://www.whatsonstage.com/news/theatre/opera/E8831291986455/Ladyboy+Butterfly+comes+to+Islington.html

As Bangok Butterfly opens at The King's Head in Islington, a ladyboy version of Puccini's evergreen masterpiece, director Adam Spreadbury-Maher explains to Whatsonstage his thinking behind his adaptation.

"Whenever an audience leaves Madam Butterfly, you hear familiar things as they walk through the foyer: 'How beautiful', 'how lovely' - but this is a story about a fifteen year old girl married and abandoned by an older man. There is something seedy and dark and discomfiting about it within the astonishing music. I've wanted to direct my own Butterfly since assisting on it at Sydney Opera House, and having spent some time in Thailand, felt that Cio-Cio-san's story could very well be that of any of the ladyboys in the bars on Patpong road, picked up by Western tourists and then ditched a few days later, the fun over, a naive heart broken.

My Madam Butterfly (or Bangkok Butterfly) is a fifteen year old lady boy picked up by American Airlines pilot Pinkerton for five days of fun.