MONKEY! Young Vic tour to 23 March.

London/Tour

MONKEY!
by Colin Teevan

Young Vic Theatre Company on tour
Runs 2hr One interval

Review Timothy Ramsden 23 March at Chester Gateway Theatre

Food for thought as well as physical adventure takes this show's shelf-life beyond the Christmas season.If ever a show fulfilled the instruction to think first then act, it's this - although thinking time in relation to action is less than minute. A few Buddhist interventions serve the purpose of allowing audience – and, in some cases, actors - time to draw breath before, as Elliot Levey's cheeky Chinese Monkey 'of the Mind' says, it's 'Time to play.'

This is the cue for another fight scene, in which the scintillating simian is allowed to shine by groups of opponents who helpfully stand around letting him finish one of them off before the next goes in for the kill. Not that killing's too much in order; firm biffs you'd have thought would lay out an elephant don't keep the various demons who waylay Buddhist Monk Tripitaka and his companions on their journey to enlightenment, from leaping up for seconds and thirds. Until the last, suitably climactic, conflict, where they all weigh in and get counted out.

Monkey! was the Young Vic's 2001 Christmas show. The theatre's seasonal production is an annual highlight of the London winter. It was interesting to see it tamed by Chester's raised proscenium stage (the Young Vic generally plays as a thrust or in the round) with audience rows disappearing into the distance and an audience with festive cheer way behind them.

No doubt there were shouts and suggestions galore in the early days. With a mixed adult/young person Saturday night end of tour audience, the responses were either not forthcoming or arose from a few hardy individuals. Even Monkey's brief forays into the auditorium passed for very little.

Yet the strength of the piece held it together between narrative forwards and wushu, martial arts choreographic sections. And Levey's infectious enthusiasm as an ever-energetic innocent with a long way to go on the path to enlightenment, anchors the play very much with its younger audience members. With Tripitaka as a wise yet vulnerable parent-figure there's a sympathetic sense of child power which fellow travellers Pigsy and Sandy (the fish-dragon) flesh out with their wilful spontaneity and impractical deduction. An adventure in thought and an adventure indeed.

Wily Worm/Prince of Black Rooster: Don Klass
Pigsy: Jan Knightley
Buddha/Yama, Queen of Death: Aicha Kossoko
Monkey: Elliot Levey
Emperor T'ai Tsang of China: Sang Lui
Sandy: Jason Thorpe
Daughter No 3/Sly Devil: Andrew Wareham
Spirit of the Planet Venus/Tripitaka: Inika Leigh Wright
Jade Emperor/General Yin/Mr Kao/Mother Demon: Tom Wu

Director: Mick Gordon
Designer: Dick Bird
Lighting: Neil Austin
Sound: Crispian Covell
Music: Kila
Movement Director/Associate Director: Dan O'Neill
Wushu Choreography: Alasdair Monteith
Flying: Foy

2002-03-24 11:29:59