By Gene Ching

The Monkey King is a new opera by Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang, premiering at War Memorial Opera House and commissioned by the San Francisco Opera in partnership with the Chinese Heritage Foundation of Minnesota. It retells the creation tail of the Monkey King, Sun Wukong, from one of China’s greatest epics, the 16th century classic Journey to the West (Xīyóu Jì  西遊記) by Wu Cheng’en. Over the centuries, this story has inspired countless operas, movies, cartoons, television series, and most recently, video games. Just last year, the video game Black Myth: Wukong sold 20 million units in its first month to become one of the world’s fastest-selling games of all time, a true testament to the eternal power of this venerated story. This new adaptation fuses opera, movement and puppetry, and is performed in Chinese and English. 

We spoke to some of the cast and creators about their inspiration, as well as their connections to martial arts, over Zoom: first the Solo Dancer Monkey King, Huiwang Zhang, and then second, Peking Opera consultant Jaime Guan and Choreographer Ann Yee together. 

First Huiwang Zhang:

GC: You're billed as the ‘Solo Dancer Monkey King.’ Is that kind of like a stunt double for Kang Wang? [Kang Wang is billed as ‘Monkey King,’ the opera singer].  

HZ: You are right! You know, there’s three recreations of Monkey Kings: One through puppetry, one through movement, and one through voice which is the singer. I do the movement. They are all connected but individually, they’re having their own track of narratives. 

GC: Your dance roots are in Beijing, yes?

HZ: The company that I was working for in Beijing is called China Drama and Dance company. It’s a state-owned company that has an opera company in it, but we functioned independently as a dance company. My background was trained in Chinese classics. That is a form that’s inspired by Peking [a.k.a. Beijing] opera so there’s elements of Peking opera in my formal training. We would do similar physical training sessions but not exactly the same. 

GC: A lot of that opera training is mirrored in modern wushu, right?

HZ: Yes, I think everyone took martial arts. I mean if you know the original Peking opera, the Peking opera itself is a fusion of martial arts theater and everything you know combined. So it took elements from all the different forms to serve the theater purpose of storytelling.

GC: What kind of martial arts were involved in your training?

HZ: We had a combination of things, but nothing goes too deep.  I learned Chen style Tai Chi while I was in school; it was pretty good. We had martial arts teacher coming from outside. He taught us a semester of nanquan [Southern fist 南拳] so that's like choreographed steps. But not to be like a martial arts master. That wasn’t the purpose. It was just getting all the tools that we will need in the future, just kind of getting the taste of it. That’s how I would like to think about it. Now looking back – how to integrate that into your dance to serve whatever in the future. For me here for Monkey King, that’s exactly how that serves the purpose, you know?

GC: This opera is the creation story of Monkey King, the beginning chapters. Does it get to where he picks up his staff. Do you do any staff work?

HZ: Yeah, we did the stick, but it’s surface level. You’ll see when you come see the show.

GC: Beyond your training, what monkey movements inform you? With so many versions of Monkey King, which ones inspire you personally?

HZ: I feel like my generation grew up on watching the TV series. My grandparents liked to watch them. No matter how many times they have watched, they still watch them again. So as a kid growing up in China, I saw them a lot. There’s an animated version which is where we took inspiration from. I participated when I was young. That’s where I started learning a little bit of the staff work, how to manipulate sticks. And then, twenty years later, I’ll do this here, so it’s kind of connected. 

GC:  Monkey stick has such a mythic place in Chinese martial arts and it’s very playful. 

HZ: It’s very fun. You get to be mocking at the heavenly gods and be playful like a kid. 

GC: Definitely a prankster. That must have been a fun one for you to interpret.

HZ: It’s very fun. I’m so glad that I’m doing the physical version as opposed to the singing version. Singing, you’re just standing there for hours. I got all the flying and fun running around. [laughs]

GC: How demanding is this for you physically?

HZ: You know, to be honest, it’s not as demanding because I come from dance work where we dance of hours nonstop on stage. The focus is on the scene, the vocal component. For me, the dancing monkey, I come out at the beginning of the scene, setting up the tone to be physical. You can do whatever you need to do for a minute and a half. You go off and then there’s this element of puppetry and elements of vocal singing. It’s a combination of things. For myself alone, it’s not as demanding physically. The focus is different than what you would do with dance performances. 

GC:  Coming from China and now as Asian American, does Monkey King affect you on a personal cultural level?

HZ: I haven’t thought that deep. For me, it’s a good opportunity for me to transition because I worked in a professional American postmodern theater company for like nine years. I met Huang Ruo when I was doing this, M. Butterfly, and the free opera. That’s a couple of years ago. He came to see a show that I did in New York at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. We met afterwards and some we got into a conversation where he invited me to audition for Monkey King principal role. That was in New York last October and then he just asked me if I wanted to do it. I accepted this opportunity and now I’m here. 

Personally I’m so grateful to be representing Chinese culture on one of the main stages in America, in San Francisco where the immigrants first landed back in the 18th century. Chinese came here for building railroads. People struggled and survived so there’s that kind of significance deep inside of me that I don’t usually share. But it’s kind of a lot to take if you don’t take the lighter side where we’re just being part of the season which is entertaining, serving the purpose of performing. But there are deep meaning of having this almost all Asian cast gathering this group of talented people together to put up a good show for the audiences in America. 

GC: What does this Monkey King offer that’s fresh?

HZ: First of all, it’s live performance.

GC:  Sure, but Peking opera is live. Why not just do that?

HZ: Peking opera has its limitations. It’s a stylized play where the audience is expected to have some kind of knowledge. For example, they bring on this stick that represents a horse which works if you know. If you don’t know then you can’t really appreciate that. In my point of view, all the creative team is trying to make it accessible for the American audience. It’s even for people who don’t know the story. There’s this spectacular stage design, the puppetry from Basil [Twist], and there’s three story lines – dancing, puppetry, singing. It’s taking inspiration from Monkey King, but it’s not exactly following the original literature. It has its own take on it.

Second Peking Opera consultant Jaime Guan and Choreographer Ann Yee:

GC: We’re a martial arts magazine so we’re curious about the martial influence on Monkey King. How are you interpreting this?

JG: Monkey became very popular in China and around the world, especially Asia, right? Korean, Japanese, South Korean, South Asian, all the countries have done the same story. This show started 38 years ago on Broadway with David Henry Hwang.

AY: David Henry Hwang is our librettist. Jamie and David have been working together for a very, very long time on multiple different projects. So what Jamie’s talking about right now is the conversation he had with David 38 years ago. 

JG: Yeah, 38 years ago. We did the Kung Fu - on Broadway production in 2014. That’s the one about Bruce Lee. The Bruce Lee story. They wanted to put the Bruce Lee story and Monkey together – just to try to bring the Monkey King story to a western audience. I didn’t want to disappoint them. It would be very interesting. How can we make a very different story from anybody’s production they did [before]. That’s why we have a singing Monkey King, a dancing Monkey, also martial arts, dance, east meets west. Also beautiful lighting, beautiful set designer, all put together. It will be very, very interesting. 

GC: Your roots are in traditional Beijing opera, right?

JG: When I was ten, I was into the Peking opera school for eight years. After eight years, I graduate from the school, then I work in the Peking opera number one company for fifteen years before I moved here.

GC: That’s incredible.

JG: I moved here in 1984, forty years ago. 

AY: You wouldn’t know it, would you?

JG: I studied ESL, and then business growing. M. Butterfly bring me into the production. That was 1987. Then we started to Broadway – musicals, plays, so many shows. 

GC: Monkey King must be really close to your roots then.

JG: Yeah, when I was really young, I played Monkey King. I played a big role – the warrior Monkey King. 

GC: Wujing [martial painted face 武净]

JG: Yeah. This Monkey King I want to put him back more energy because we talk about for 38 years and finally it’s happening. Maybe I cannot wait and then something ends, I don’t know. But I just thinking, it’s a real opportunity to build a show and also show up for the western audience. And also make everything different.

GC: For those of us familiar with previous Monkey Kings, what is fresh about this production? What are you guys bringing to it that’s making this new and original?

JG: Original. You know all the Monkey King from Peking opera for the monkey shows, right? Right now you can see in the movies. Also right now you’ll see all the cartoons, all the videogames – Wukong, right? Everybody knows the Monkey King story. But this production is east meets west. Also the music is very beautiful and also very contemporary. It’s not slow. It keeps going. Each scene – music, music – it’s very interesting, this production.

AY: I’m going to riff off that. Our director, Diane Paulus, likes to talk about the first time the composer, Huang Rou, met with her. He said ‘I want my children to have heroes that aren’t just Elsa and Spiderman.’ You think about what we give the next generation these days and it’s a real beautiful endeavor. How can the composer Huang Rou and the librettist David Henry Hwang bring such a powerful, meaningful tradition from the east to the west in San Francisco at San Francisco opera. And so when you ask the question ‘What’s going to be different about this?’ we have this incredible set and puppet designer named Basil Twist. If you ever just want to go down a lovely little journey of imagination and vision, google him. He spent a life creating magic out of thin air and animating puppets and silks. Just his brain is vast. So he’s designed our set and our puppets and that alone has taken it pout of the tradition of Peking opera that Jamie is super familiar with and the tradition of Peking opera that a tremendous amount of people with Asian and Eastern heritage will almost be expecting.

GC: Right. I do have expectations.

AY:  And Basil kind of like filtered it through his imagination and created this world where a singer and a dancer and a puppet all coexist as the incarnations of Monkey King. That is the first really big tentpole. Anybody who’s made Monkey King part of their reality, a part of their history – you know, they’ve read Journey to the West a number of times and they’ve seen four different Peking opera versions – this will be completely different because of that imagination and because of the embodiment of Monkey King in three beings – puppet, singer and dancer. 

Now that idea – puppet, singer and dancer – is a conceit of David Henry Hwang and Huang Rou. So already they’re trying to crack open what we think we know about Monkey King so we expose something new or share something new or offer an opportunity to people who don’t know it, a way in.

GC: I love what you said about Elsa and Spiderman. Growing up, when I first read Journey to the West, I didn’t quite get it. It was too much Deus ex machina so it just didn’t work for me. It didn’t really click until I read it as a bedtime story to my daughter and then it all opened up, and I could see the lessons in it and the metaphors. It was really something to pass down.

AY:  Oh that’s great. That’s great.

GC: I’m curious for you Ann, looking over some of your past work, this is something very concentrated in Chinese culture. It’s an almost all Asian cast, right? How is that feel for you?

JG: Yeah, I was involved with M. Butterfly, you know, B. D. Wong, comes from San Francisco. You know B. D. Wong, right?

GC: Of course.

JG: And that was the first time David wrote the love story, M. Butterfly, including opera scenes. I put something together – All the different choreography, also staging, like Kabuki, you know, move the chair. It’s very special. We create this one working a lot, many years, for the Chinese American – Asian cast. You see all the Asian cast in San Francisco, L.A., there’s so many. Then later on we’re working on Flower Drum Song, right? San Francisco night club. And we create a new version. Later on, we work on The King and I, new version. All Asian American stories on Broadway. Now I just work on east meets west projects. 

You know, I actually choreographed Coco Lee from San Francisco for Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon ‘A Love Before Time.’ I choreographed the martial arts, dancing and staging for the Oscars. That was how can you take Kung Fu movements into the dance to understand. Like you do Kung Fu your whole life, right?

GC: Sure.

JG: How can you musically put that into dance? That’s very complicated. That’s why a lot of Wushu in China, they want to try put it on stage. Put it to music. They like the performers. That’s not their background. Those are our backgrounds. 

GC: Right [laughs]

JG: They take out something. They change. All the Taiji right now, they want to show. Even your Taiji movement, exercise body, do the movement, right now they want to put it on stage and do the show. That’s a complete change, completely change your mind. We come from Peking opera, Peking ballet, techniques come from generations building that kind of form. But you see Kung Fu Hong Kong style [makes violent fighting gestures]. Ours stay beautiful, right? They say ‘Why you not touch each other?’ We should not touch each other. We’re soft, that kind of form.

GC: A lot of those Hong Kong stars, they’re roots are in opera. Jackie Chan was trained in opera. Bruce Lee’s parents were opera.

AY:  They’re all trained in Peking opera? Like you?

JG: Oh yeah. Like me.

AY: Could you take on Bruce Lee?

[everyone laughs]

JG: Bruce Lee is Wing Chun style, right? Hong Kong style. [laughs more]

AY: It’s been such a privilege to hang out with him [gestures to Jaime]. When the team first approached me to do movement direction slash choreography on this, the ask on this opera is huge. Normally with opera, you need to do some step chorus, a couple of scenes, you might have a featured dancer, a limited amount. This particular opera, the chorus is constant. They’re in so much. We have an ensemble team that is multitasking in dance, in puppetry, in characters. They’re just incredible. 

So in talking to me, I have some history in music theater; I have some history of theater; I have some history in opera. I cross genres and I’ve got feet and hands in different pies and worlds. And so the brought me on and I’m thrilled to be considered. I had just finished work on another opera with David Henry Hwang and Huang Rou in New York, An American Soldier, directed by Chay Yew. They were like ‘Can you come do Monkey King?’ and I was like ‘I would love to.’ The ambition of the project, it’s really nice to be involved. Full transparency – no Peking opera. Full transparency – no martial arts. Happy to be involved. They’re like ‘Don’t worry. We got Jamie. We have a consultant. We have somebody here who really knows this intimately.’

And what’s fascinating is – I’m just going to riff a little bit on what you were saying about whether or not you know the Kung Fu, and what Kung Fu you expect, and what martial arts you expect – when casting in a western country, when casting for the dancer role of Monkey King when you’re not going to do Peking opera and you’re not going to do Peking ballet, but that DNA has to be there even if that’s not what you’re going to do because we’re picking bits and bobs from tradition and then kind of dancing with a new context with Huang Rou’s composition and David Henry Hwang’s condensing of Journey to the West. So we need the DNA strand of that tradition with a skill set that can release it to something new. I think you’ve already met Huiwang Zhang, right?

GC: Yes, a few minutes ago.

JC: He’s a new generation of dancer from China.

AY: And Jamie just kept turning to me after we started working with Huiwang saying ‘He’s one of a kind. He’s one of a kind.’ You’ll never find anyone else like him.

JG: No. The whole country we cannot find anyone who can play the Monkey King. We’re lucky.

AY: We’re very lucky. He’s quite special.

But I do think it’s a fascinating journey to go on. Like I said earlier, that’s not my tradition. Chinese, yes, my grandparents are from the mainland, yes. That’s all true. Doesn’t mean I read Journey to the West. Doesn’t mean I have a kind of grounding in it, but I have a kinship and a recognition that has been really enjoyable to discover. 

GC: A lot of our work at KungFuMagazine has been about not just the martial arts of course, but the cultural sharing, trying to build bridges between China and the U.S., which feels so critical now.

JG: Also I work in another project in Berkeley, Berkeley Repertory Theatre – Woman Warrior – Maxine Hong Kingston’s book into the musical. That was 1994. Thirty years ago, we build in California. Inside we have Mulan character. They dream, they have some martial arts choreography. All the warrior generals with Mulan we did. That was thirty years ago.

AY: When you were twelve. 

[everyone laughs again]

I wish you could see him in rehearsal. He just comes out and starts choreographing this martial arts fights with sticks and it’s effortless. The whole room stops. 

JG: No, no.

AY: Everything you’re doing. 

JG: I’m just very lucky to have Ann. You know it’s a hard thing to choreograph martial arts to the music count. It’s a hard thing. They don’t know the count. Their flow – they don’t have a musical. This one, they have to break it down. Not only do you have to break it down, you have to have style.

AY: And then you have to change it. You have to go ‘Oh, that’s not going to work.’

JG: We change all the time. That’s why we work very well.

AY: No [laughs]

JG: I learn the music. I think about it. Maybe I put a little bit more, like a 2:8, 1:8, more. They cut it down very easily. They work because they’re already musical. 

GC: Thank you for your time. I’ll let you get back at it. Break a leg.

AY: We hope we build something beautiful for you. 

These interviews have been edited for conciseness and clarity.