The folk-tales and legends collected to ornament the Buddhist epic, "The Journey to the West" have provided material for all levels of popular theatre in China, from streetcorner hand puppets to the venerable Beijing Opera. That institution, a shadow of itself due to the Cultural Revolution and modern commerce, recently found an unlikely new "star." Ghaffer Pourazar, an Iranian living in Britain became interested in various theatrical movement forms, accepted an invitation to visit Beijing, decided to study at the National Opera Academy, and after five years, wound up playing the Monkey King, a very popular comic martial-arts character. Since his advanced degree is in computer animation, he found his way to the Media Lab at M.I.T. to participate in a motion capture project which hopes to preserve the complex physical forms which distinguish various traditional roles before the aging masters who can teach them are no longer with the Opera. He also formed an alliance with mask-maker Eric Bornstein and his Behind the Mask Theatre, and recently spent a month's vacation in Cambridge working with them on this show based his main role. The company works out of the Cambridge Adult Education Center on Brattle St., so Ghaffar was able, without compromising his visa, to present several lecture demonstrations and master classes.
These performances served an interesting prologue to BTMT's interpretation of the legends. Their full-face masks depart from the "painted face" makeup style of the Chinese Theatre by modifying the shape of face. Bornstein plays The Immortal, Monkey's teacher, in a mask which adds height to the role, while his Pigsy mask is far more boar-like than makeup, even with prostheses, could achieve. Deborah Coconis, his partner in mask-making and the script, performs the Bhodivista Kuan Yin with the spherical serenity of a statue, while her pixieish Peach Maiden has a pointed mien. As Monkey himself, David Kessler captures the swiftness and subtlety of the role while his mask has an interesting neutrality whereby it takes on the character of the moment. Starting from a straightforward script, these three create an effective entertainment from the sprawling material.
A fourth masked performer, Leda Eliot does all three monsters sent after Monkey after his rampage in Heaven; the White Tiger, the Green Bird Demon, and the Red Dragon, in quick succession. These masks are over-sized with very little clear vision, but she and Kessler manage to perform some impressive martial-arts routines as our hero wins the day. Other fantastic moments, such as Monkey’s journey to get his magic weapon from the Dragon King of the Sea, are handled by shadow puppeteer, Kelley Cutler with Kessler lending a hand, and sometimes his masked figure. On a screen behind the playing area, Kuan Yin too appears as a life-sized shadow as Monkey tries to escape Buddha's hand. A portion of the story is also sung by Cheryl Wanner, masked as a Celestial. In the Chinese tradition, the show is a mix of music, song, dance, storytelling with martial arts routines when appropriate.
An original score, influenced by the Chinese Opera tradition but using more Western tunings, was created by Frank Gerace, who performs an almost continuous underscoring along with Wanner as percussionist. The whole production in general honors the spirit and tradition of this aging style without getting bogged down in obscure stylistic moments. In China today, most large-scale performances are presented for the tourist trade from a very limited repertoire. Much smaller productions, done by satellite companies, are presented when and where facilities are available for a dwindling audience which appreciates the finer points of the tradition. International projects such as this one by the BTMT may help to revive and extend the life of this complex form. Indeed, judging from a growing number of mask theatre Web-sites, interest in that ancient discipline, with roots in pre-literate shamanism, may signal the return of the mask to more prominence in the West. The more things change ...