M. Butterfly

I think if we had known Song's gender from the get-go, we would have felt frustrated, duped, and thought less of the play.

First off, Hwang clearly wrote the play knowing the events that occurred. Most likely, a theater-goer would have also known the events surrounding this topic. It wouldn't have been a secret that Song was a man simply because of the real events that the play is based on. 

I feel that I would have been frustrated by the ending if I had not known that Song was a man for the whole show. Maybe it's something to do with our fascination at seeing others fail, but I enjoyed seeing Gallimard struggle through three affairs and eventually divorce his wife for a man. It's sort of like reality television: we are fascinated by these people's lives, but ultimately their lives are filled with unrealistic drama and we cannot turn away. I felt the same with Gallimard. I cannot imagine how he did not know that the person he was sleeping with was not a female, but I couldn't help but sit back and see what G did to S knowing that S was a male the entire time. 

I also feel like if we had not known until Song strips at the end of the play, we would have felt just as duped as Gallimard. I do like the occasional romantic movie, and I want to believe in true love, but knowing that their love was true through the entire show and ending with us knowing that it wasn't would have made it less fulfilling for me. I actually enjoyed seeing Gallimard fall for this man and then read his reactions to Song's lack of vagina. I definitely wouldn't have appreciated seeing this love story and then find out it wasn't a love story in the long run. Again, I really enjoyed knowing that it wasn't a love story from the get-go. I felt that the play was well-written as it is and I would have thought less of it if I had been duped and frustrated by the ending. Instead I was able to see the beauty in the ending because I did not feel those emotions.