Three small images - red dot, face and line-drawing of a pinned butterfly with white text against a soft grey background
 

Cho Cho San

1984

A bitter-sweet revision of the Madame Butterfly story written by Daniel Keene, directed by Geoff Hooke and designed by Ken Evans, with a score composed by Dalmazio Babare and Boris Conley.

Cho Cho San played a four-week season in an intimate performance space at the Universal Theatre, Fitzroy. The set occupied the long side of the rectangular room and performers and musicians shared the stage.


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Scenes from Cho Cho San and comment from designer Ken Evans. Footage courtesy ABC TV Education 1984.

Cho Cho San set model
white baby grand piano
Piano bar
"Where is the man for a pearl of Japan?"
Sharpless and Goro
Goro drunk
Musician Dalmazio Babare
Musician Boris Conley
The Go-Between
"Captain, you're a lucky man."
Goro high
Pinkerton considers Goro's proposition
"There she is!"
Cho Cho San
Cho Cho San and her puppet self Butterfly
" I hear they call you Butterfly."
Wedding night
Wedding night
Wedding night
"Fate spins a web of sorrow for me"
Cho Cho San sings Butterfly's song
"Only you can change it."
Butterfly puppet is gradually dismantled
Three years later
"Child, in this town you're little more than dirt."
Rehearsal
Playtime
Pinkerton returns
Kate Pinkerton
The couple arrive to claim the child
Mother and child
"Do not wake."
Playwright Daniel Keene
Opening night invitation