Reepicheep’s Wave

Reepicheeps Wave is also inspired by The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis. Similarly to the Silver Sea, the inspiration comes from the final chapter of the book where the galleon, Dawn Treader sails into a freshwater sea of lilies (the Silver Sea) from a saltwater sea.
C.S. Lewis describes a paradoxical tsunami; a moving wave that stays in one place like a glassy wall. The wave’s name sake, Reecpicheep, is the courageous Narnian mouse whose life ambition is to reach the land of Aslan (our equivalent to Heaven/Nirvana). Reepicheep’s Wave is a beautiful literary device employed by Lewis to convey a journey taken from one reality to another.
One of Bruce’s other childhood fascinations was the film The Last Wave directed by the Australian Peter Weir in which Weir alludes to a mythical tsunami that once wreaked havoc over huge swathes of what is now New South Wales.
As with many of his pieces of work Reepicheep’s Wave is a result of more than one interest. The idea of creating a monumental wave in three dimensions has always been an ambition of Bruce’s for many years, but it occurred to him that the positive nature of Reepicheep’s Wave (celebrating heaven’s gate) should take precedence. The theatre stage at Montalvo offers a perfect canvas for this piece.