Tea and Sympathy

In only its second season, Theatre Esprit Asia is on the rise; as TEA co-director Tria Xiong notes, the pan-Asian company was the toast of last month’s Colorado Theatre Festival, winning six of nine categories for which it was nominated and getting a standing ovation for its repeat performance of last season’s bold Spirit and Sworded Treks. So it only seemed natural that this small and specialized company should kick off its 2014-2015 run with something splashier, its biggest cast ever and new staging challenges. To that end, TEA will present the regional premiere of M. Butterfly, the 1988 drama by David Henry Hwang that’s become an Asian-American classic while raising issues of gender identity.

But successfully interpreting the shock and awe of this story — about a French diplomat obsessed with a male Peking opera singer performing in drag — wasn’t TEA’s biggest obstacle. Rather, it was the challenge of bringing it down to size. “M. Butterfly is typically done on a big stage with ornate costumes, as a big theatrical production, but we’re doing it in the little Aurora Fox Studio Theatre,” Xiong notes. “Our biggest challenge has been to stay within budget and still be able to craft a fantastical and visually stimulating show.” The result is focused more on the intimate and less on pure flash, offering a more personal interpretation made even more so by after-show talkbacks facilitated by the Gender Identity Center of Colorado.

M. Butterfly, directed by Rick Shiomi, longtime leader of the Asian-centric Mu Performing Arts company in Minneapolis, opens tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the Aurora Fox, 9900 East Colfax Avenue in Aurora, and runs through September 28. For information and tickets, $22 to $30, visit theatre-esprit-asia.org.

Thu., Sept. 4, 7:30 p.m.; Fridays, Saturdays, 7:30 p.m.; Sundays, 2:30 p.m. Starts: Sept. 4. Continues through Sept. 28, 2014