闊別20年，《蝴蝶君》重返百老匯

The playwright David Henry Hwang warned me, amiably, that he might duck some questions. His play “M. Butterfly,” the Tony-winning hit from 1988, was back on Broadway for the first time, and the production was feeling guarded: No, I couldn’t read the new version of the script. No, the director, Julie Taymor, would not do an interview.

劇作家黃哲倫(David Henry Hwang)友好地警告我，他可能會回避一些問題。他的作品《蝴蝶君》(M. Butterfly)在1988年贏得托尼獎以來，首次回到百老匯時，制作團(tuán)隊感覺有所防備：不行，我不能看新版的劇本。不行，導(dǎo)演茱莉·泰莫(Julie Taymor)不能接受采訪。

Mr. Hwang would, though, and here he was in the lobby of the Algonquin Hotel, a couple of hours before the first preview at the Cort Theater. Opening Thursday, Oct. 26, the show stars Clive Owen in the role John Lithgow had the first time around, with Jin Ha in the part that won a young BD Wong a Tony.

但黃哲倫可以。于是，在離該劇在科特劇院(Cort Theater)首次預(yù)演還剩幾個鐘頭時，他出現(xiàn)在了阿爾崗昆酒店(Algonquin Hotel)的大堂里。將于10月26日周四上演的該劇，由克里夫·歐文(Clive Owen)出演約翰·利思戈(John Lithgow)最早飾演的角色，秦河(Jin Ha，音)出演為年紀(jì)輕輕的黃榮亮(BD Wong)奪得托尼獎的那個角色。

Inspired by the true story of a yearslong affair, beginning in the mid-1960s, between a French Embassy employee and a male Beijing opera singer who was also a spy, “M. Butterfly” is about race, sex, espionage, geopolitics — and the titillating question of whether it’s even possible to mistake the gender of one’s lover, as the Frenchman claimed to have done. In the play, which also borrows from Puccini’s opera “Madama Butterfly,” the diplomat Rene Gallimard is in love with Song Liling, an opera star who seems to him the ideal woman.

《蝴蝶君》的靈感來自一個真實的故事。故事始于60年代中期，法國大使館的一名工作人員和一名實為間諜的男性京劇演員產(chǎn)生了一段持續(xù)數(shù)年的感情。該劇涉及種族、性、間諜、地緣政治，以及是否有可能像那名法國男子所宣稱的那樣，弄錯愛人性別這個充滿挑逗性的問題。此劇還借鑒了普契尼的《蝴蝶夫人》(Madama Butterfly)。在劇中，外交官高仁尼(Rene Gallimard)愛上了他眼中的完美女性、京劇明星宋麗玲。

Song’s true gender was the meant-to-shock big reveal of the original Broadway production, directed by John Dexter. But in what Mr. Hwang, 60, called a “reverse meta situation,” the show’s success led to detailed coverage of the real people he’d loosely based his characters on. And by now, the play has been in the repertory for nearly 30 years. As Mr. Wong said by phone recently, “The cat is out of the bag.”

在約翰·德克斯特(John Dexter)執(zhí)導(dǎo)的老版百老匯劇目《蝴蝶君》中，為了起到震驚全場的效果，宋麗玲的真實性別是一個天大的秘密。黃哲倫大致根據(jù)真實人物塑造了劇中的角色，但該劇的成功引發(fā)了對真實人物的詳細(xì)報道?，F(xiàn)年60歲的黃哲倫稱其為“形勢逆反”。到現(xiàn)在，《蝴蝶君》這一劇目已經(jīng)輪演了近30年。正如黃哲倫最近在電話上所說的，“貓從袋子里跑出來了”(意為秘密泄露出去了——譯注)。

Yet here’s the thing, as I saw when I bought a ticket and went to an early preview: Mr. Hwang has made a new cat, and Ms. Taymor has put it in a very different bag. This “M. Butterfly” is the same play, but with significant changes to let it toy with our perceptions afresh. (It’s not the first time he’s gone back and tinkered; when his play “Golden Child” got an Off Broadway revival at Signature Theater Company in 2012, he reworked the bookending scenes. The “M. Butterfly” rewrites are more consequential.)

但有一點，正如我買票觀看早期預(yù)演時所看到的那樣：黃哲倫重新創(chuàng)造了一只貓，泰莫把它放進(jìn)了一個完全不同的袋子里。這一版《蝴蝶君》是同一部劇，但出現(xiàn)了顯著的變化，為的是讓它重新挑戰(zhàn)我們的認(rèn)知。(這不是他第一次退回去修改劇本。2012年，當(dāng)他的外百老匯劇作《金童》(Golden Child)在簽名劇團(tuán)(Signature Theater Company)重新上演時，黃哲倫改編了首尾幾幕?！逗返母膭痈蟆?

Mr. Hwang sat down to chat, sometimes obliquely, about rebalancing “M. Butterfly” for 2017 and how the landscape has and hasn’t altered since the show made him the first Asian-American playwright on Broadway. It’s a place he’s worked many times since, most recently with “Chinglish” in 2011, but he’s never had another smash like “M. Butterfly.” These are edited excerpts from a conversation.

落座后，黃哲倫開始談起——有時是間接地——為了符合2017年的時代背景而對《蝴蝶君》進(jìn)行了哪些調(diào)整，以及自該劇讓他成為百老匯的首位亞裔美國劇作家以來，哪些情況發(fā)生了變化，哪些沒有變。他在這里工作了多年，上一部作品是2011年的《中式英語》(Chinglish)，但他再也沒有拿出另一部像《蝴蝶君》這樣的賣座劇目。以下是經(jīng)過編輯和刪節(jié)的對話。

This is such a fascinating moment for a revival. What took so long?

選擇當(dāng)下這段時間重新上演頗為引人遐想。是什么讓你等了這么久?

Over the last couple decades, I’ve been reluctant to do it. How do you do it again and at least hope for an impact that maybe is comparable? “Butterfly,” I think, successfully addressed some issues in the culture in its first iteration. It would be really nice if there was a way to feel similarly resonant with the culture today.

過去20年里，我一直不愿做這件事。你如何才能再做一次，并指望至少能產(chǎn)生堪與上一次相媲美的影響力?我認(rèn)為原版《蝴蝶君》成功直面了當(dāng)時的文化中的一些議題。如果有辦法和時下的文化產(chǎn)生類似的共鳴，就真的太好了。

I feel like it anticipated what we now call intersectionality, this notion that issues like sexual orientation and gender identity and sexism and racism are all interrelated. So I feel good about that.

我覺得它預(yù)見了我們現(xiàn)在稱之為交錯性的東西，這種所有議題全都息息相關(guān)的理念，比如性取向、性別認(rèn)同、性別主義和種族主義。所以這讓我感覺很棒。

You worry about cultural impact rather than “Can we get a production of the same caliber?”

你更擔(dān)心的是文化影響力，而非“我們能否打造出同樣有品質(zhì)的東西”?

I think the two are related. Part of the reason “M. Butterfly” worked the first time around is because I was collaborating with a director who really understood how to use the theater. When [the producer] Nelle Nugent and I started talking about Julie Taymor, that was a really exciting notion.

我認(rèn)為這兩者是相互關(guān)聯(lián)的?！逗纷畛踔阅塬@得成功，部分原因在于當(dāng)時與我合作的導(dǎo)演非常清楚如何利用百老匯劇院。我和[制作人]內(nèi)勒·紐金特(Nelle Nugent)談起茱莉·泰摩(Julie Taymor)的時候，真的非常興奮。

Because her visual sense is so acute, I sometimes feel she doesn’t get enough credit for the degree to which she is fundamentally focused on story and character. Julie was asking a lot of questions about the text. She wanted to make sure that I was clear about what Song’s motivations were and Song’s point of view as well as Gallimard’s, because so much of the show is taken from Gallimard’s point of view.

我有時候覺得，由于她有著極其敏銳的視覺感受力，她對故事和角色的根本性的專注反而被遮蔽了，沒有得到足夠多的認(rèn)可。茱莉總是就劇本問大量問題。她想要確保我既清楚地知道高仁尼的動機和觀點，又知道宋麗玲的，因為該劇有太多篇幅是從高仁尼的視角展開的。

Did that make you want to clarify things in the text?

這會促使你想要在劇本中澄清一些事情嗎?

Coming back to it now, it’s still not a docudrama, but there were aspects to the real story which we both felt could complicate the story in an interesting way and also bring out more strongly, I hope, Song’s point of view and Song’s experience in that relationship. And that led to going back into the text. I wasn’t sure, because it’s a play that’s very much associated with me and it was successful the first time around and did I really want to mess with it. But I really loved going back and reacquainting myself with those characters.

它現(xiàn)在進(jìn)行復(fù)排，仍然不是紀(jì)實性的作品。不過我們倆都覺得，真實歷史的某些方面能以有趣的方式為這個故事增添復(fù)雜性。我希望它們也能更有力地帶出宋麗玲的觀點，以及她在這段關(guān)系中的體驗。因此，就要重新回到劇本中去。我一度不太確定，因為這部劇對我來說意義重大，初登百老匯舞臺時又取得了成功，我真的想要改動它嗎?但我最終很享受重回劇本的感覺，這讓我再次去發(fā)掘那些角色。

The dilemmas that they’re dealing with continue to be a lot of core issues that I face as a writer, whether they have to do with questions of identity or the fluidity of that identity, how the way we perceive ourselves changes given our social context changing. That’s the soil that I like to till.

他們應(yīng)對的困惑，仍是我作為劇作家所面臨的很多核心議題，無論他們不得不應(yīng)對的是身份問題，還是那種身份的流變問題——在社會環(huán)境不斷變化之際，我們?nèi)绾慰创约旱淖兓?。這是我樂于挖掘的東西。

How does now feel different from then, in terms of where we are as a culture?

就文化環(huán)境而言，你覺得現(xiàn)在和當(dāng)時有什么不同?

I think the complexities of gender, our culture is much more aware of those, and different gender expressions. But we clearly are still caught in a kind of toxic masculinity that not only affects the relations between men and women but even, more explicitly now, affects our political decisions and particularly the way that we as a nation try to deal with the world.

我認(rèn)為我們的文化對性別的復(fù)雜性以及不同的性別表達(dá)有了更深入的認(rèn)識。但我們顯然仍被困在一種有毒的男子氣概中，它不僅影響著男女之間的關(guān)系，甚至還影響著我們的政治決策，尤其是我們作為一個國家設(shè)法與世界打交道的方式——現(xiàn)在這一點變得更為明顯了。

In the play, both the new and the old versions, Gallimard falls into a relationship with an Asian woman who he believes to be sort of submissive and extrapolates from that how the West should deal with the East politically. Today, when we have a president who feels that the way to deal with North Korea or Muslim countries or whatever is by being tougher and more abrasively masculine, that feels to me incredibly consistent with the story “M. Butterfly” is trying to tell.

在這部劇中——不論是新版還是老版——高仁尼投入到與一個在他看來頗為順從的亞洲女性的戀愛關(guān)系中去，并從中揣測西方在政治上應(yīng)該如何對待東方。如今，我們的總統(tǒng)認(rèn)為，在處理與朝鮮或穆斯林國家或無論什么人的關(guān)系時，應(yīng)該更強硬，也應(yīng)該更具粗糲的男子氣概，我覺得這和《蝴蝶君》試圖講述的故事有著不和思議的契合度。

And the notion of male dominance over women as a manifestation of true masculinity is certainly very much in our current discourse and very much part of the play.

把男性對女性的控制當(dāng)成真正男子氣概的表現(xiàn)之一，這種認(rèn)知顯然廣泛存在于我們當(dāng)前的話語以及這部劇之中。

Does it make any difference to have a female director on a play that’s so much about male and female identity? 對一部高度關(guān)注男性身份和女性身份的劇來說，有一位女性導(dǎo)演會有什么不同嗎?

I certainly didn’t want to work with Julie Taymor because she’s a female director. That said, I’m aware of the degree to which I can only see the world through my point of view, and it’s really helpful when I want to know what the other points of view are. For instance, if Julie’s telling me that the minor female characters don’t seem as expressively developed, I think that’s really useful to know.

我想要跟茱莉·泰摩合作，顯然并非因為她是一名女性導(dǎo)演。不過，我意識到在某種程度上我只能以自己的視角看待這個世界，當(dāng)我想要知道其他人的視角什么樣子的時候，這真的非常有幫助。例如，如果茱莉告訴我，對一些女性小角色的開發(fā)似乎不夠豐滿，我會認(rèn)為知道這個非常有用。

Did she say that?

她說過這個嗎?

Umm, she might have said that.

嗯，她或許說過。

How old were you when you wrote “M. Butterfly”?

你是在多大年紀(jì)寫的《蝴蝶君》?

When it opened, I was 30. So I probably wrote it when I was 28, maybe?

開演的時候我30歲，那我可能是在28歲那年寫的，也許吧。

There are things about the original that were shocking in its time, and I don’t think a lot of those things are particularly shocking nowadays. That provides an opportunity to go back in and look at these characters even more as fully formed human beings, as opposed to being kind of overwhelmed by the surprise and the shock of the story.

原版中的一些東西在當(dāng)時是非常驚人的，我并不覺得那些東西放到現(xiàn)在有太過驚人之處，這就提供了一個回過頭去研究這些角色的機會，把他們當(dāng)成更完整的人去審視，而非止于某種獵奇。

How different is it? 新版有多大的不同?

There’s a lot of tweaking of specifics in order to create more three-dimensionality, create more nuance, enrich the love story and try to balance out the Song and Gallimard points of view a little.

修改了很多細(xì)節(jié)，以便打造更強的立體感，增添更多細(xì)膩的東西，把這個愛情故事變得更豐富多彩，并把高仁尼的視角和宋麗玲的視角變得更平衡一點。

One specific example: Shi Pei Pu, who was the actual spy, played in a Chinese opera called “Butterfly Lovers.” “Butterfly Lovers” is nowadays a very popular Chinese story. It also is about gender confusion. So we have kind of incorporated an awareness of “Butterfly Lovers” into this version of the story.

舉一個具體的例子：時佩璞，也就是那個真正的間諜，演過京劇《化蝶》?！痘肥且粋€流傳很廣的中國故事，它也涉及性別的混淆。因此我們在這一版的故事中，加入了某種《化蝶》的意象。

What impact did the success of “M. Butterfly” have on Asian-American representation in the theater?

《蝴蝶君》當(dāng)年的成功對亞裔美國人在百老匯的表現(xiàn)有什么影響?

I think it meant something that there, (A), was a play by an Asian-American author on Broadway and, (B), that it was successful. Has that led to the gates being opened over the past 30 years? Not really. For a long time, I continued to be the only Asian-American author that was ever done on Broadway.

我認(rèn)為它的意義在于：首先，寫這部劇的是百老匯的一個亞裔美國劇作家;其次，它取得了成功。但這在過去30年里幫助打開大門了嗎?并沒有。很長一段時間里，我都是唯一一個有作品在百老匯上演的亞裔美國劇作家。

There’s been a big explosion of Asian-American playwrights and talent Off Broadway and in the regions. In general, Broadway continues to be not inclusive in a way that represents the population. It is just a good business model to begin to diversify both the faces and the stories that exist in the theater — as TV is starting to learn.

在外百老匯等地，已經(jīng)出現(xiàn)亞裔美國劇作家和人才的大爆發(fā)。但總體而言，百老匯仍然不夠包容，未能體現(xiàn)這個國家的人口構(gòu)成。讓存在于百老匯的面孔和故事開始變得多樣化，就像電視行業(yè)開始學(xué)著去做的一樣，其實是一種很好的商業(yè)模式。

Did you expect progress to move faster in the wider culture?

你是否曾經(jīng)以為，大的文化環(huán)境有更快的進(jìn)步?

I expected it to move faster over the last 20 years, and I’m kind of encouraged by the degree to which the pace has picked up over the last, say, three to four years. It feels like maybe there’s a tipping point going on.

我本以為它在過去20年間會得到更大的改善;但過去三四年間的進(jìn)步之快讓我感到一絲欣慰。看樣子拐點也許正在到來。