Monkey… Journey to the West.

Monkey… or How To Tell an Epic Tale from Another Culture of an Epic Journey With Not Much Money But With Energy, Jokes, Puppets, Acrobats and Loads of Imagination.

Many people who are now parents – and some had to be in the audience at The Playhouse, in Geelong’s great Performing Arts Centre - would remember the Japanese-produced television series, Monkey Magic.  It aired on the ABC in 1979 and was re-released on DVD in 2004.  As far as I know, this theatre show is not a version of that television series, although it is impossible not to recognise characters, costumes and story points.

Kim Carpenter visited China in 2011 and saw two theatrical productions of Monkey. That’s not the version we get to see here in Geelong either.  Mr Carpenter has come up with his own.  He and writer Donna Abela dived into the original source material, a 1,500 page novel, extracted the best bits and concocted this colourful show.

Mr Carpenter and co-director, the illustrious John Bell, then pulled together a cast that includes some terrific Asian performers, plus a troupe of tumblers and acrobats (Joshua Tieu, Jair Coronado, Jack Brown and Johnny D).  The acrobats are amazingly agile and they dramatise everything from the rock in which hero Monkey is imprisoned to the numerous fights and skirmishes that occur along the way, as well as operating puppets large and small.

Dramatising this Chinese folk tale for an Australian ‘family’ audience is a pretty brave enterprise.   Not only is it imbued with an alien spirituality, it is peopled with supernatural beings and monsters.  Really understanding the characters and their story involves knowing at least something about Chinese culture and mythology.   So we do get a lengthy, exposition-heavy set-up that inexplicably employs a lot of polysyllabic management-speak that isn’t funny and goes over most folks’ heads.  It amused some adults, but of course left the kids – and there were plenty of them – more or less patiently blank.  Oh-oh. 

But once the Queen of Heaven (Lena Cruz) gives monk Tripitaka (Aileen Huynh) his (yes, his) quest, and assigns the disgraced but still cheeky Monkey (Aljin Abella) to protect him, the show is up and running.  Tripitaka has to go to from China to Vulture Peak, in India, to retrieve three books of ‘sacred texts’.  I’d guess the kids and most of the adults didn’t care too much about ‘sacred texts’ per se, but now we had a hero, a quest, a fun helper and a journey.  The eponymous Monkey – a king of chaos – will learn humility.  And the journey ends with not-so-oblique comment on the Buddha’s teachings vis à vis contemporary materialism – which felt a bit Les Mis worthy ‘author’s message’ to me.

The characters’ journey involves hardship, obstacles, chance meetings, comedy, new characters and a variety of hostile forces.  Monkey and Tripitaka meet more characters cast out of Heaven and they too become helpers: there’s Pigsy (Adriano Cappelletta), whose characterisation seemed to owe more than a little to Sir Les Patterson, and Sandy (Sam Devenport) who used to be a cannibal but now redeems himself on the journey, making many sententious, New Age-y pronouncements.

The acting – everyone except Mr Abella, Ms Huynh and Adriano Cappelletto play multiple parts - is generally pretty pantomime-broad, more noise and energy than nuance, but nuance is not the point.  Aileen Huynh, a woman playing male monk Tripitaka, however, gives a lovely performance of stillness, innocence and goodness – which is tough to bring off at any time.

Sian James Holland’s lights help the swiftly changing elements of comedy, danger and reflection, and Tony Love’s sound design gives substance to monsters and temperamental weather.  Clearly the driving force is Kim Carpenter: he created the show, designed it – including the projections on the cyclorama depicting the journey, the terrain, under the sea and dark, cold valleys.  There are a few songs that don’t quite fit the jokey tone of the rest, but otherwise, Peter Kennard, the composer, is literally a one-man-band – on stage throughout and providing atmospherics and an appropriately Asian feel to the journey.

It’s very much a show for the family. While the kids around me seemed rapt and my granddaughter (aged 5) was totally absorbed and asked no questions till the interval, there are also plenty of gags for the grown-ups, some of which sail pretty close to the wind – and thankfully just over the kids’ heads.  (When Pigsy is rejected by the sexy Spider Spirits, he whines, ‘I was hoping for a happy ending…’)  For the Dads, there are the very shapely aforementioned Spider Spirits (Ms Cruz and Lia Reutens) in their black sequin body suits.  Later we get the toned acrobats in hot pants. Sometimes the show is scary – but not too scary.  There’s verbal humour and slapstick.   There are messages of courage, endurance, loyalty and spirituality.  Given the source material, it is really impressive if also surprising how much comes across to the audience.

Michael Brindley