Wittman's transitions: Multivocality and the Play of Tripmaster Monkey

Abstract

Those of us who avidly followed Wittman Ah Sing's adventures through the pages of Maxine Hong Kingston's 1989 Tripmaster Monkey had a long wait for his reemergence. When at last he appeared in 2003's The Fifth Book of Peace, he bore little resemblance to our previous neuroses-riddled protagonist. Well-adjusted and wedded, Wittman's struggles over isolation and miscommunication now seem little more than a haunting dream from a halfforgotten past. One striking similarity remains, however, in the form of an all-inclusive peace-play at the apex of Wittman's active endeavors. This lingering valorization of performance provides a link between the two novels and two Wittmans, suggesting that it is the play itself that abetted Wittman's transformation from lone monkey to full-fledged community member. Theatrically resolving Wittman's previously paralyzing conflicts between unity/identity and Chinese heritage/American nationality, Fifth Book's play enables him both to find his own voice and to incorporate the multiple voices of others. I would like to return now to Wittman's first theatrical production in Tripmaster, focusing on this section of the