It wasn’t very well advertised. I never saw a single billboard for it and I only saw one commercial for it on the MTR.But that was enough.
I was definitely taking my family to see a The Monkey King: China’s first rock musical when it came to Hong Kong.
Andrew Lloyd Webber, eat your heart out.
I emailed a bunch of our friends and neighbors inviting them to join the Van Noord family, and –can you believe it- I didn’t get a single response back. When I approached a few people about it, they either had a glazed-over look in their eyes or they gave me a little knowing smirk before turning me down.
Hello? We’re talking The Monkey King, here. Live. On stage. China’s first rock musical, people.
Well, we went. Alone. And let me just say, you all missed out. It was awesome.
It was like Joseph and Phantom and Evita all rolled into one. Okay, it wasn’t anything like that. It was more like Cats on amphetamines meets Starlight Express with a lot of kung fu acrobatics thrown in.
It was loud. It was colorful. And it had a lot of spinning. A lot of spinning. And let me tell you folks, when you go to the theater to see one of these big production numbers you want to see a lot of spinning. And I’m just letting you know, this show had a whole lot of spinning.
The musical is based on a thousand-year-old Chinese myth and is about this monkey who . . . well, never mind, I have no idea what the show was about. All I know is that Monkey King kept twirling a big stick to fend off a string of baddies –each one in a more glittery outfit than the one before.
If the performers weren’t busy spinning, they were twirling one thing or another. Twirling is almost as good as spinning.
Andrew Lloyd Webber plus kung fu action. What’s there not to like?
Too bad for all of you who could have seen it, but didn’t. You wouldn’t know high-class culture if it bit you on the backside.
Long live The Monkey King.
-Jack
And yes, we hung around afterward so that I could get my picture taken with various cast members. And yes, I bought the commemorative DVD. Did you even have to ask?
Okay, I'll admit I'm one of those that didn't respond to your email. I DID mention it to the family to see if they were interested though, and they only expressed interest in the "eating together before" part - glad you enjoyed it and can make another notch in your totem pole of Asian experiences!
ReplyDeleteyou make it sound lame. and like all they did was spin in rainbows of glitter.
ReplyDelete