I usually talk about the activities of my theatre in vague terms but I am really getting excited about the way an event is unfolding for us. This November, the drama department will be performing a version of Journey to the West adapted for the stage by Mary Zimmerman. If you have been reading my blog for awhile, you will know that the drama director is quite enamored of Zimmerman’s plays. This will be the fourth we have done in five years.

Journey has been a play he has wanted to do for a while now. A few years ago he was accidentally (we assume) put through directly to her agent who gave the director the impression that Journey was his favorite of all Zimmerman’s plays. Whether the agent said that or not, the director resolved to do the show. The problem was, the play was not in print so an appeal to Zimmerman directly was needed and much to our delight, she granted permission.

If you aren’t familiar with Journey to the West, it is essentially as much a cornerstone of Asian culture as the Odyssey is for Western cultures. Nearly every Asian country has their own name for the central figure of the Monkey King. The influence on popular culture is vast. This year’s Forbidden Kingdom with Jet Li and Jackie Chan is based on it. In 2010 a direct interpretation of the book is due out. Countless anime and manga stories draw from it. At the Charleston Spoleto Festival this year, a stage version was presented with music by Blur/Gorillaz member Damon Albarn. There have been numerous television series based on the story. Just go to YouTube and type in Journey to the West. There are so many options, it is pretty difficult to discern between them if you try to watch contiguous episodes of one series.

What makes the story so appealing is that it is both a tale of rollicking high adventure involving the heroic slaying of fantastic beasts and demons and a medium for discussing Buddhist philosophy. Since we did the Odyssey last year one of the parallels I saw immediately was between Odysseus taking 10 years to get home and the abnormally long time it takes the Monkey King and his party to make it to India. When the monk, Tripitaka, who the Monkey King is accompanying comments on this, the Monkey King points out that their progress is tied to Tripitaka’s ability to cast off his hang ups and approach enlightenment. It occurred to me that Odysseus probably had much the same problem.

In any case, there was a fair bit of excitement brewing about this production. One of the contributing factors was the decision that the show would involve tissue work–essentially the fabric climbing that you often see in Cirque de Soleil shows. One the hope of being cast, people were taking tissue workshops this summer on their own dime. Once people were cast, they were required to complete a minimum amount of training if they hadn’t already.

This is pretty serious work so people are training and working out every day for the next two months to strengthen themselves and refine their technique. The great thing is, this is adding to the excitement and energy backstage. It was too appealing to pass up so I asked someone to start taking candid pictures of the process so I could put them up on the website and in email messages to subscribers.

Here’s a little of what we got-

All photos, Julia Dunnigan