Hanuman The SuperHero Monkey Review

We have seen fairly a tad too much hero films on screen either from Marvel or DC comics saving the world or day but coming from a superhero monkey named Hanuman does sounds amusing to us. Wonder what can a monkey do other than munching on bananas? Well, we sweat thru the sweltering hot Sunday morning to find out about this part cartoon, part theatre, and musical collaboration production by Singapore Repertory Theatre with the UK’s Imitating the Dog – we heard it was an original multimedia and highly visual piece of play, which sounded rather interesting! As we took our seats in the theatre of KC Arts centre – Home of SRT, the lights dim to an eye-rolling crew came running on stage to pick up banana skin (there will be lots of literally the real “eye-ball” rolling in this one, we say) which seems to have been left behind, by none other than those stellar characters before the show starts. Hanuman tells a tale of the monkey god from the Ramayana and Hindi folklore, with his company of 4 other monkeys on a quest to save Sita, the beautiful queen of Rama, when she was abducted by an evil demon Ravana. Prior to saving the queen, Hanuman had to find back his amazing super powers liked flying and inner strength to defeat demons, by first believing in himself that he can be a superhero Monkey again after many years of degenerating life when he misused his powers due to childish naughtiness.

With the fascinating choreographed scenes and screens, to digitally animated set with eye-popping graphics, Imitating the Dog performed a seamless support to this short 45-minute performance liked an epic journey out from the movies. We were impressed and awed by how 5 casts had to act, sing, dance, move around the animated boards and changing costumes within the short span of time (we put our heads off to the crews who have all done the rehearsal well and probably over and over many times).

If you are looking to bring your kids (recommended 5 years and above as there will be scenes that might pose as slightly terrifying to glare – image of a large floating eyeball projected on the board acting as the villain Ravana or loud thunder lightning scenes which are not for the “faint-hearted” little ones) to a theatre for educational lessons on self-believing and imparting values between friendship and determination to fulfill a promise, hop over to SRT this month and get your tickets to this victory of good over evil monkey tale and enjoy the amazing visual effects you never thought you would find on stage! Oh, don’t forget to grab some goodie bags from some sponsors on the way out – we loved the coloring pencils from Starhub and mini zip lock bags from Vitagen! (you know, typical Singaporeans fetish or maybe justs us!).

Meanwhile, take a look at their trailer for a sneak on the characters!