Enter Offstage

“The dramatist who is not a poet is only half a dramatist”—John Howard Lawson, Theory and Technique of Playwriting (298) In other words, plot can only get you halfway. The language of a play must—in order for the work to transcend the obvious, the mundane, the predictable, the banal—be poetry. A poem is not a play, but put the right collection of poems in the right hands and—voila! You have the most exciting and engaging production I’ve seen in any theatre, anywhere, ever. Seriously, it’s that good (in my limited experience and humble opinion). Saturday Night at the Pāhala Theatre is an award-winning collection of poems by local author and educator Lois-Ann Yamanaka. Director Harry Wong III and his team have fashioned the book into a play, rearranging some things while keeping the integrity of the original work firmly intact. Individual poems become scenes, and though the “narrative” is fragmented, the overall effect is a testament to the quality of its parts. The scenes ran

As I sit in the audience at Manoa Valley Theatre, the lights come up, the play begins, the premise of God of Carnage stutters out of the characters’ awkward back and forth niceties, and I find myself wondering: how will I react one day if some kid beats up my daughter? What if my daughter is the aggressor? As a new mother, I’m particularly sensitive these days to anything dealing with what it means to be a parent. But I don’t think you have to be a parent to relate to and enjoy Carnage —the play is primarily a study of human character, of the psychology of relationships and social interaction. Carnage shows what might happen when four “civilized” adults, caught in the perfect storm of personality and circumstance, get together to discuss a schoolyard incidence of violence between their two sons. Basically, what starts out as a polite discussion ends up in domestic chaos, resulting in a pretty hilarious night of theatre. The comedy in this production comes from two sources: act