Monkey King Rocks on St Patrick's Day!!!

Wednesday, March 17th was the celebration of St Patrick's Day.  More commonly known back home simple as Paddy's Day.  And the day people can be excused for getting completely drunk and wasted!!!    The St Patrick's Day parade here in Toronto actually took place on the Sunday, March 12th (as not to distrupt any businesses having it during the week I would imagine), so on March 17th downtown was rather a quiet enough affair.....  Except thousands of those dressed in green, and the local LCBO off license and The Beer Store businesses was going through the roof than usual! 

No alcohol was consumed by myself on this day of celebration this year (I know, very well behaved I am.... ).  Instead, my Irish national holiday had more of an Eastern flavour instead.....

Renowned Beijing based theatre company, Sight, Sound & Action launched their production of Monkey King at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics and the success of the show has taken the tour to Toronto performing at The Canon Theatre.

I had the pleasure to see this show on the evening of St Patrick's Day, and to be honest I wasn't quite sure what to be expecting only that I was looking forward to it!    Monkey Kingwas labeled as the first ever Chinese rock musical.  I had actually had this show mixed up with another musical, Journey to The West which lead singer/vocalist of the UK bands Blur and Gorillaz, Damon Albarn was involved in.....  Little did I know when the first song opened on stage it was actually performed in Mandarin!!! 

Majority of the show is made up of pure instrumentals (as apposed to any singing), a mixture of Chinese classical strings mixed with modern contemporary rock guitar and drums.  The show was aided with digital screen display providing the stories narrative during the scene changes (both in English and Chinese) and also the introduction of whenever a song is about to be performed.

The music was great.  What singing there was was fantastic.  But what really made this show for me was simply the amazing physical performance by the whole cast.  The mixture of dance, acrobats, movement and martial arts were simply breath taking!  I have seen some really extravagant physical theatre shows and musicals before but never had I seen one to this extend.....  The precision and elegance of every step, jump, flip, kick, split etc. I witnessed on stage was jaw dropping and it really made me feel longing to be part of a show like this (although I probably don't possess such athleticism as majority of this youthful cast who most likely all came from Beijing opera or wushu academy background)..... 

It's rare for any theatre I've been to to allow the audience to take pictures during the show, but we were addressed before the show began that we are allowed to as long as the flash was off.  So I managed to capture a few snaps to share.  Sorry the quality isn't the best, I had a decent view of the action live but my Canon Powershot wasn't the greatest to be shooting such material I guess..... 

For those familiar with the Journey to The West story, upstage on the picture above is Monk Tang Seng and his disciples, Monkey King, Sandy, Pigsy, and White Dragon Horse.

Monkey King was actually performed by three different artists at different stages of the show.  (We actually only learnt of this during the curtain call at end of show)  That is understandable as it was most certainly an extremely physically demanding role.  I never knew which one was who at certain point, but I gathered one of them was probably the more gifted gymnast/acrobat as there were some scenes when the Monkey King had to do some awesome crazy continuous flips on stage!!!  And other times it was noticeable the flips and spins weren't as wild as before but some serious martial arts was on display by the Monkey! 

It's hard to make out, but what you see above those two crouching yellow lumps on stage is actually two most adorable kids playing the Twin Child Kings!   And they demonstrated some wonderful Kung Fu skills and balancing act (including one standing on the others shoulder while walking - then doing a front flip off and landing on his feet! ) and was always in sync as twins should be....    They were a real joy to watch whenever on stage. 

Credit to Dennis K. Law, the man behind the Monkey King production for bringing such a stunning entertaining epic onstage.  If I had to fault anything it would be the fact the neat show program only provided credits (and rightly deserved so) to those who worked behind the scenes on the show, but there is no information on any of the artists who performed onstage at all.  No bios or even names of cast members provided.    It is such a shame because I would love to know who were those talented individuals I saw performing and maybe one day will be able to catch up on anymore of their work in the future.

I did manage to get the opportunity to take a couple of quick snaps with some of the cast members after the show! 

Here with one of the Monkey King!!! 

With the man who played the villian, Evil Bull King.  This guy (who looks far from evil up close and in fact is a really nice guy!) had some awesome skills, it did look like he was flying across the stage most of the time!!!    Respect.... 

Unfortunately I didn't get take any pictures with any of the beautiful ladies from the show as they were crowded out by all the men (women and children too I suppose) waiting to get a snapshot with the stunning cast members.  Here are a few pictures of the talents involved though.

The Goddess of Heaven - she who provided most of the singing in the production, and what a fantastic voice she has.

Evil Bull King's partner in crime, Lady Fan.  This beauty has some wicked moves on her.  A talented dancer and mover indeed.

The Princess of Ice Mountain was like.... Wow!!!    A real stunner and talented performer, there were moments in the show I was so wrapped into it I wanted to slap Monk Tang Seng in the head for not yielding to the love from this beautiful creature.... 

This young lady portraiting the role of Skunky performed some of the most unbelievable movements onstage I can't even describe what I had witnessed!  She was simply outstanding....  Oh, and pretty too. 

Monkey Kingis scheduled to run in The Canon Theatre, Toronto till March 28th.  I am not sure where this production goes from here but it certainly is a musical that deserve a wider audience and I hope it will generate the attention and a world tour might possibly be on the cards.

Kudos to Sight, Sound & Action and Dennis K. Law for this fine piece of theatre and for really rocking my St Patrick's Day!!! 

Peace & Best Wishes,

Alan