“there were such significant plot holes, it’s challenging to form a developed opinion on what’s left”
Butterfly Lovers is proving itself to be a difficult show to write about. Quite simply, the reason for that is that there were such significant plot holes, it’s challenging to form a developed opinion on what’s left. Following the protagonist’s opening identity crisis, she immediately asks her father if she can go to medical school. After being told that the place for women is in the home, the scene ends.
The next scene opens with her announcing that she’s off to medical school, disguised as a boy. Sadly, I can’t shake the notion that this probably didn’t fully convince her father. Likewise, later in the play the same protagonist has to rush home because her mother is ill. Once she makes it home, the mother makes literally no appearance and is never mentioned again.
Additionally, I found it genuinely hard to tell whether or not the antagonist was supposed to be funny. The homophobic undertones and class based arrogance were unpleasant, but were somewhat undermined by the Disney movie-esque screeches of laughter.
There were some good performances from the small cast, but there was nothing groundbreaking enough to turn the piece around or salvage much from it. The romantic plot was underdeveloped, and the staging managed to feel simultaneously under informative and over complicated.
With a lot of work and significant commitment to change, this piece could go somewhere. But it’s far from being there yet.
Reviewed by Grace Patrick
Butterfly Lovers
Tristan Bates Theatre as past of Mélange: The New Musical Theatre Festival
“an exciting thriller that succeeds at combining dystopian politics with a fascinating insight into the manipulation of truth”
In the silence after a storm, at the moment between attack and retaliation, when more than a million people have already died from bombs and a country is questioning its future, two men meet in a bunker. They are enemies, it is ruthless fanatic versus righteous rebel, with nothing but a table between them, ready to fight for their ideals. Neither of them suspects that by the end, they will not know which side they are on anymore.
What appears at first to be a political work soon becomes a kaleidoscope of human interaction and communication. Reasoning and logic are deployed like weapons to uproot formerly fixed ideals. Both a play of ideas and power, the conversations between attacker and rebel demonstrate a flexibility of truth that resonates strongly with current discussions. While this emergence of individual truths as opposed to factual truths leaves an eerie feeling of helplessness, the absurdity of false logic feels like relief.
Marco Quaglia and Stefano Patti deliver electrifying performances. In their volatile, unpredictable and often illogical attempts to justify their positions, they create an almost oppressive tension in the room that is kept up throughout the play.
The suspense is supported by Echoes’ flawless interplay of sound (Matteo Gabrielli and Samuele Ravenna), lighting (Paride Donatelli) and direction (Stefano Patti). The theatre, with its bare blackened walls, seems to reverberate with the bass as bombs are falling, almost evoking the smell of the stale filtered air of a bunker. And while the lighting moves between realistic and abstract illuminations around the simple set, there are moments when there is complete darkness, inviting the audience to feel the reality of some of the issues raised.
Echoes is not only an exciting thriller that succeeds at combining dystopian politics with a fascinating insight into the manipulation of truth, but also a well-directed and entertaining show.
