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Showing posts from June, 2012

Superficial Authenticity — A DOLL'S HOUSE at TAG

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Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House is a very “well made” play. It follows all of Aristotle’s rules about unity, telling a detailed story without jumping around in time or changing the scene location. This is an old fashioned play and TAG’s Brad Powell delivers an old fashioned production. You can almost imagine it as a film in black and white. Roberge, Jones, & Farmer Courtesy of TAG—The Actors' Group But this is a play. Live and in color. Which is good, because otherwise you’d miss how lovely the set and costumes are. The small theatre abounds in detail, from the stove to the picture window to the decorated Christmas tree and so much more. Andy Alvarado has truly outdone himself. Carlynn Wolfe’s and Christine Valles’s costumes complete the transportation to 1890’s Norway. The story centers on Nora and the moment when her world, or what she imagines it to be, dissolves. And beyond the mirage she finds the mirror, and faces, for the first time in her life, unadorned

Halloween Comes Early to Honolulu — JANE AUSTEN ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE at AMG

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by Guest Contributor Becky McGarvey There was a large turnout at the ARTS at Marks Garage this past Thursday. Although the art exhibit (pottery by local artists) was beautiful and would have drawn a crowd on its own, this particular crowd was excited to be the first to see a special preview performance of On The Spot's Jane Austen Zombie Apocalypse , which turned out to be the best play I've seen all year. [Photo taken from Jedi M. Aster's Facebook album ] Jane Austen Zombie Apocalypse is exactly what it sounds like. But instead of just being yet another play/book/movie to rent space in the recent popular zombie trend, Zombie Apocalypse is a very well-written, well-acted, well-done production that has what so many popular plays/books/movies are missing these days—a good story. The play follows main character Katherine Montgomery­—played by Lisa Anne Nilsen—a strong young woman who likes to play with pistols and rapiers. All of England is beset by zombi

The Ebb and Flow of Resistance — KĀMAU A‘E at KKT

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Has anything changed in fifteen years?  Timtim, Murray, and Jaime Bradner as Lisa Kealoha Courtesy of Kumu Kahua That’s one of the questions I’m left with after seeing Kāmau A‘e , Alani Apio’s dramatic interpretation of the Hawaiian Sovereignty movement and its impact on one particular family. The play premiered at Kumu Kahua Theatre in 1997, three years after its predecessor Kāmau , which had its revival in 2007. In the program, the setting is listed as “Present Day”—today, as opposed to the present day of its creation, fifteen years ago. And so the question...has anything changed? What does the play mean today? Is it more or less powerful, relevant, accurate? This may not be for me to answer, first, because I never saw the original production, and second, because I have only lived in Hawai‘i since 2003. It is, however, something this revival calls into consideration. Fifteen years is barely a teardrop in the grand scheme of things, but in mere human time, it could easi