What was that sound you heard on Bethlehem's southside?

And when was the last time, you attended a play and about half of the audience got up and left soon after it began?

Touchstone Theatre was at it again, challenging conventional theater wisdom, with "Journey From The East."

This time it was with, what I would describe as "Journey From The East": "East versus West Version 2.0."

What Touchstone co-founder Bill George and Touchstone Associate-Moravian College Director of Theatre Christopher Shorr, who cowrote "Journey from the East," did is a mash-up of eastern myths and western myths.

The primary source material for the eastern myth is "Journey To The West" (1592), a classic novel of Chinese literature.

The primary source material for the western myth is the American movie western of the 20th century.

Through time travel, role reversals and, essentially, two different plays, Touchstone Artistic Director Jp Jordan, who directed "Journey From The East," turned the theater-going experience on its ears and seats.

And that's where those sounds come in.

"Journey From The East" was presented at 3 p.m. April 18, 19, 25 and 26 at the Chinese Harmony Pavilion, and on an adjacent stage and platforms in the 200 block (between Taylor and Webster streets), of the South Bethlehem Greenway.

Actors' voices boomed off the brick and concrete walls of adjacent buildings. The play's sound effects of a train whistle mixed with an actual horn of a Norfolk Southern freight train wending its way along the Lehigh River.

Dr. Paula Ring Zerkle, an associate music professor and Director of Choral Music at Moravian College, who wrote the show's music in collaboration with Michael McAndrew, Moravian College, Class of 2014, conducted the music ensemble.

The effect was that of a surround-sound system at a movie theater.

And, yes, soon after the "Journey From The East" began at the Harmony Pavilion, a good portion of the audience left, or, more precisely, was asked to leave.

Two big yellow buses pulled up on the parking lot, and about 100 or more audience members got on board. The buses drove, appropriately enough, to the eastern terminus of the Greenway where the "East" portion of the show was presented.

That audience got to see a 16-foot dragon and monkey and bandit puppets created by Doug Roysdon of Mock Turtle Marionette Theatre.

I opted to stay in my seat where the "West" portion resumed.

The first-act concluded with the "East" portion cast members, audience in tow, walking west along the Greenway and showing up at the Pavilion area.

The cast included Deng Dafei (Pigsy), Bill George (Old Timer), Mary Wright (Maggie), Josh Neth (Roy Madsen), Anna Russell (Musician), Remy Kayal (Dragon God), Emma Chong (Horsey) and He Hai (Mr. Tang).

Deng Dafei and He Hai are the Chinese-based Utopia Group, which collaborated on "Journey" with Touchstone and the Moravian College Theater Company.

The actors portrayed larger-than-life characters with larger-than-life performances.

There were moments of theatrical magic as often happens in outdoor venues.

"So, he thought of himself as a butterfly," went a line of dialogue as a small white butterfly flitted over the heads of the sun-drenched crowd.

Bicyclists, joggers and pedestrians passed on the Greenway, seemingly oblivious to the pageant unfolding before them.

"Journey From The East" was the latest in Touchstone's big-cast, large-scale, outdoor spectaculars. Previous shows include "Steelbound" (1999, on the site of the old Bethlehem Steel Corp. foundry), "The Don Quixote Project," "Another River Flows: The Lehigh Valley Black Experience" and "A Resting Place."

It's the kind of presentation that could find a home in Bethlehem every year.