Monkey Business
Two performances are creating a buzz on my, heavily filtered Spoleto radar. Festival bloggers are chattering about Monkey: Journey to the West.
Just got back from a dress rehearsal of Monkey: Journey to the West.
I saw about half of the story, I think, up to the point at which Monkey is captured by the Great Buddha for 500 years. The rest is still a mystery, happily, to me. Here’s what I can say about the show: It’s visually stunning. It’s like taking a graphic novel and rendering it for the stage.
There’s little need for much wordiness. The exposition is clear from the structure of the myth: A powerful monkey is saddened by the fact that he will die someday. All of his romping and joy will end one day. What’s the point of carrying on? So he seeks immortality.
How did Monkey: Journey to the West go from ‘opera’ at its festival premiere in England to ‘musical theater’ here in its American premiere?
Answer, delivered by Paula Edwards from festival producer Nunally Kersh: Spoleto USA figured it could sell more tickets to family audiences if it assigned Monkey a less intimidating category. So it’s opera… only funner?
Joan:
The Monkey Opera caught my eye and I called my son to see if he would be game. It was just off the wall enough to appeal to him. So, tada! We’ll go to the Monkey Opera next week. Dancing Monkeys are almost as good as drunken puppets
Heather @ May 23, 2008