Monkey – Journey to the West at O2
Last night I saw Monkey at the O2. There are just a few days left of the extended run and I highly recommend trying to get last minute tickets if you can make it.
Monkey is based on a old Chinese legend (most known by people of my generation as a 70′s TV show called Monkey Magic). Monkey is essentially a circus opera with sung dialogue, acrobatics, martial arts and animated cut scenes. The choreography and acrobatics are by famed Chinese actor and director Chen Shi-zheng. The music is by Damon Albarn (of Blur and Gorrilaz fame) and he has teamed up again with one of my favourite comic artists Jamie Hewlett (best known for Tank Girl).
The music was really good, and had much more of a sense of quirky modern fun than usually associated with opera – in some places very haunting and in others suitably comical. Albarn also throws in some old school gaming music for when Monkey gained a new weapon or friend, which really went well with the visuals and had retro charm. The opera is split into scenes – but really it plays out like a series of computer game levels with cut scenes and action moments and lots of special effects and stunts.
The music was also mostly live with singers on stage as well as a small orchestra and live digital effects. The language is all in Chinese with subtitles projected either side of the screen – I was a little far forward to see them well but that didn’t matter too much – if I didn’t get a bit I could also have a quick glance to check. And the spectacle alone was enough to make not seeing all the subtitles not matter.
The visuals were beautiful – the Gorillaz videos were effectively a warm up for this project. There was also some scenes where the on stage characters interacted with animated parts which worked really well (especially for the underwater scenes).
I have always had a huge amount of respect for martial artists and acrobats. The troupe on Monkey were amazing. I especially enjoyed the ribbon work and combat scenes as well as the opera singers ability to fight and sing – or even fly on wires and sing so beautifully.
The trailer is below – and I am sure this will become a DVD at some point – but really – if you can go and see it – do. It was worth every penny.
All images in this post are copyright to the original artists.
Links:
Official site with images and details
Wiki page
BBC page with video’s, interviews and more
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