Dream on Monkey Mountain Essay Example For Students

Dream on Monkey Mountain Essay Near the end of Derek Walcotts Dream on Monkey Mountain at the Guthrie Theater, an ad hoc tribunal convicts a long list of dead white people Aristotle, Plato, Shakespeare, Copernicus, Galileo, Ptolemy, Sir Francis Drake, Christopher Marlowe, Dante, Florence Nightingale and Al Jolson, to name but a few for the crime of shaping history. Having decided that the white version of history should be discarded in favor of a more African-friendly present, a huge white book the great white canon is wheeled onstage, whereupon page after page of oppressive white history is unceremoniously ripped out of the book, crumpled and held up to the audience for ridicule. The Guthries decision to stage West Indian playwright and Nobel Laureate Derek Walcotts Dream on Monkey Mountain isnt quite as bold a statement. But considering that Walcotts play is the second work written by a black person the Minneapolis theatre has produced in its 31-year history (the only other one being Ceremonies in Dark Old Men by Lonne Elder III, in 1970), Dream on Monkey Mountain does represent a significant milestone in the Guthries efforts to swing with the multicultural times. Indeed, Walcotts vision challenges the very definition of classic theatre that the Guthrie has clung to for the past 30 years. Hiring dancer/choreographer extraordinaire Bill T. Jones to direct the piece even though Jones had never directed a play and was unfamiliar with Walcotts work before taking the job can also be taken as a sign that the Guthrie is willing to take a few more chances than normal these days. But as risks go, hiring Jones to direct was an extremely calculated one. Naturally, the Guthrie wanted a dynamic treatment of Walcotts play, but the theatre also sought someone who could incorporate Walcotts own notions about the vital relationship between dance, music, poetry and myth emerging out of the islands, where a great deal of cultural cross-fertilization occurs. Though he wasnt aware of Walcotts work per se, Jones had formulated ideas about the connection between movement and metaphor, dance and poetry, that resonated with Walcotts ideas. This theoretical affinity (coupled with the strength of Joness three-hour epic dance piece, The Last Supper at Uncle Toms Cabin/The Promised Land, plus his more recent experience choreographing on a large scale for the Houston Grand Opera and the Glyndebourne Festival Opera) convinced Guthrie artistic director Garland Wright that Jones and Dream on Monkey Mountain were a good match. Factor X was Joness politics. And racial politics is, in the end, what informs Joness version of Dream on Monkey Mountain as much as anything else. Jones makes plenty sure that none of the Guthries largely white, privileged patrons can walk out of the theatre without making the connection between the pain of deracination at the heart of Walcotts play and the rage of young black people in Americas inner cities. Reluctant to let Walcotts work speak for itself, Jones even added an epilogue in which 10 black youths strut onstage carrying boom-boxes, staring defiantly at the audience. A slide of the Minneapolis skyline is superimposed over Monkey Mountain, while R. justice Allens rap-poem Abou-Ma-La-Ka-Jonga (Deep, black, quiet rages passion/power or love justifies the action/A billion, zillion grams of pain/Ruthless, cutthroat, insane in the membrane) blasts out and reverberates throughout the theatre. Dislocation and hopelessness Its a heavy-handed tactic, to be sure but effective, nonetheless. After all, Monkey Mountain is about one mans search for identity, and how the loss of his African heritage, the brutal facts of slavery and his feeling of utter rootlessness in the world have made that search all but impossible. Related feelings of dislocation and hopelessness seethe in the souls of young urban blacks everywhere in America the news is filled with the fallout every day but Jones apparently felt that he had to add an exclamation point to Walcotts play in order for the message to get through. And even then, Jones is dubious. In the program notes, Jones discusses his frustration with the limitations of art: An audience manifesto EssayWhat Jones is best known for, of course, is dance, and for his Guthrie directing debut he brought six dancers from the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company with him. But to his credit, Jones did not dress Monkey Mountain in flashy, experimental choreography and turn Makaks journey into his own ego trip. Rather Jones did what a good director does: He paid scrupulous attention to the mood and spirit of each scene, then choreographed accordingly. Rap-enthralled teenagers In the market scene, for example, Jones achieves a feeling of hustle and bustle with understated flourishes and complementary movement the players whirl around the marketplace, passing watermelons back and forth in graceful arcs, hoisting each other like sacks of grain, creating the illusion of a busy marketplace. There is just enough order in the dancers movements to delight the eye, but not so much that the choreography calls attention to itself. Jones also finds ways to liven up even the quietest scenes. When Makak and Moustique are chatting in the forest, dancers dressed head to toe in leaves lie prostrate on the stage, moving ever so slowly, making the forest seem as if it is alive and in constant flux. If there is a shortcoming in Joness direction, it is that so much attention has been paid to the incidental choreography that the spiritual journey of the main character sometimes gets lost in the details. Without a full exploration of the dynamics of Makaks inner struggle, the impact of the climactic moment is diminished: Makaks desperation to set himself free is still heartbreaking, just not quite the howl from the pit of the soul one might expect or desire. This unnerving sense that Makaks final act of heroism doesnt hit the heart as hard or as deep as it should is, one suspects, why Jones decided to punch up his version with a stage full of angry, rap-enthralled teenagers staring defiantly out at the Guthries alabaster audience. The normal limitations of art usually allow such audiences to leave whatever dangerous ideas they have encountered in a play inside the theatre, where they are safe. What better way to make a play hit home than to actually bring it home?