Enter Offstage

by Guest Contributor Tracy Hanayo Okubo This review begins with a more personal perspective. If you care to skip over the personal information and get straight to the portion pertaining to the actual play, please begin at the fourth paragraph. 2011, namely the second half of 2011, has been a particularly rough year for me. Things began to really go downhill when I didn’t get cast in a show that I really wanted to do, not because it was a super standout show like Avenue Q , but rather because it held special meaning to me and was an opportunity for me to work with an entire cast of people that I had really wanted to work with—including my father. In May I found myself, against my better judgment, opening up to the possibility of a meaningful relationship.The way I felt about this person is a way that I haven’t felt about someone in years and I was excited to the point that this jaded and guarded pessimist became a giddy little school girl. But it turns out that I got played

The year is 1943, and as war rages overseas, the American government commits its own atrocities at home. All around the country, internment “camps” fill with Japanese Americans—camps surrounded by fences and posts where soldiers guard the “campers” with guns. A Jive Bomber’s Christmas , by Dom & Sachiko Magwili, is set, primarily, in one such camp. Jive Bomber’s is part play part musical revue, with the change coming at intermission. The first act—though there is music and some singing—is the drama half, also functioning as the setup for the second-act variety show, something the camp resident prisoners decide to put on in the name of Christmas cheer, despite the fact that everyone involved is dealing with their own personally painful subplot. Director Stephanie Conching has her work cut out for her with only one act to develop numerous characters and plotlines that should all be resolved in the end, and hardly any dialogue or scene work in the second act that isn’t part of

by Guest Contributor  Lindsay Timmington McGahan John Guare’s The House of Blue Leaves takes place on October 4, 1965 (or the day the Pope came to New York) and features Artie Shaughnessy (Rob Duval), a zookeeper who lives in a shabby apartment in Sunnyside, Queens and dreams of becoming a famous Hollywood songwriter. Problem is—he’s no good. Problem is—he’s saddled with a schizophrenic wife (Bananas) and an overzealous girlfriend (Bunny) who’s obsessed with all things celebrity, including the Pope. Bunny (Lisa Barnes) wants Artie to dump Bananas (Stacy Ray) at the mental institution, “The House of Blue Leaves,” on their way out to Hollywood to meet up with Billy Einhorn, Artie’s childhood friend who is a big time Hollywood director. Artie will also leave behind his son Ronny (Jason Kaye), who has been drafted to Vietnam but is plotting his own shot at stardom with a plan skillfully hidden from his parents. Blue Leaves is a darkly comic, almost absurd look at dreams, politi

by Guest Contributor Tracy Hanayo Okubo Brad Powell, Artistic Director of TAG—The Actors’ Group, may have already been honored with the Pierre Bowman Lifetime Achievement Award from the Hawai‘i State Theatre Council, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to slow down anytime soon. Always one ready for a challenge, Powell took on the daunting task of directing not one, but three full-length shows to be performed in repertory. Welcome to The Futrelle-ogy , the trilogy of Dearly Beloved , Christmas Belles , and Southern Hospitality —three comedies by Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope, and Jamie Wooten that follow the Futrelle sisters and their wacky adventures. Christmas Belles is the second of the Futrelle-ogy plays, but if you didn’t see the first, Dearly Beloved , the show does begin with a quick “re-cap,” much like with some television shows, so that you are at least partially caught up. The play picks up from where the last play ended, with the eldest Futrelle sister, Honey Rae Fu

Perhaps the most well-known play of all time, Sophocles' Oedipus the King has been transported to something like a present-day corporate office in New York City for Leeward Community College Theatre’s current production of the classic. The tragedy crackles and hums—it vibrates—in this modernized staging. The house opens and the audience fills in, while on a large projector screen, news-like images flash, accompanied by sections of voiceover. In the background, on either side of the screen, the city looms dark. As showtime arrives, a reporter is heard to say something about a solar power disaster… The screen is gone, and in stream the screaming, horrified masses—or, more precisely, shareholders. And what do they want? Oedipus, of course. Joshua Weldon plays Oedipus as a young CEO certain of the love of his people—his company shareholders and those in the audience addressed as the “people of Thebes”—coming off a bit like a politician. Weldon, with the lion’s share of the lin

'Ali Hakim' & 'Ado Annie' Theatre can be a lot of things for a lot of different people. The most popular shows in terms of ticket sales, both locally and nationally, are the big “Broadway” productions, especially musicals. People, it would seem, want to be entertained. In the world of American Theatre, Oklahoma! holds an iconic status among musicals. It’s been produced on community, professional, high school, and university stages across the nation, even way out here in the 50 th state—quite a trek, geographically and culturally, from state of the union number 46, Oklahoma. In program notes, director of the Kennedy Theatre production at UHM Lurana Donnels O’Malley calls the musical “groundbreaking” and dramaturg Yining Lin notes that the original production, which opened on Broadway in 1943, “had a stunning 2,212 performances, a record that lasted for 15 years.” So, what—you might be wondering—is the big deal with this show? Why has it been so popular f

Late Night theatre at UHM has certainly taken a turn for the touchier topics: namely, sex and violence. While the first offering of the season, Stop Kiss , focused on a female/female relationship, Hot ‘N’ Throbbing —which opened last night—explores S&M in a family setting. The play, by Paula Vogel, asks what the difference is between pornography and erotica. Between a woman’s version of sex as entertainment and a man’s. And, where does fantasy end and reality begin? How does one influence the other? Which is in control? The writer, the director, the man, the woman, the body, the mind…? Get ready to meet some twisted individuals. Not that the members of this highly dysfunctional family don’t have their tender sides—Mom sleeps on the couch so the teenage brother and sister don’t have to share a room (which is a good thing, because if they did, they’d probably be fucking). Oh, if you didn’t like my use of the F-word just then, you probably shouldn’t go see this show. Because i

I kicked off my Halloween weekend this Friday with a trip to Manoa Valley Theatre to see their production of Little Shop of Horrors —a gentle entry into the season of fright. I haven’t seen the show on stage before and I haven’t seen the movie with Rick Moranis in I don’t know how long, but long, and yet this production felt familiar. The little flower shop of horrors—Mushnik’s—is set in urban Skid Row, in the…“now”? That’s what it says in the program, though it felt thoroughly past-tense; when, exactly, would be hard to pinpoint. In the opening lines of the show, the audience is told that the story happens “...in an early year of a decade not too long before our own...” OK, so that settles it. Good. It’s in the past, with corded telephones. The story is also set in a place and time when it’s “normal” for a girl to get beat up on by her boyfriend and for others to stand idly by (until someone doesn’t...). That could be the present or the past, depending on where you are and who y

The Late Night season in the Lab Theatre at Kennedy–UHM opens with Stop Kiss , by American playwright Diana Son. The play, about the developing relationship between two women in New York and the violence inspired by their first kiss, presents the audience with a modern, witty, realistic story. The scenes alternate back and forth between the moments leading up to and following the devastating hate crime. This is no easy project to undertake, as the script requires serious investment for the promised payoff. It’s a bold choice for Late Night, which offers the director only the minimal in terms of budget and design capability. Director Amanda Stone seemed to be going for a balance between the two sides of the conflict—the light and the dark—in the way she directed the play. The structure has the potential to be quite powerful. The audience should fall in love with the characters as the characters fall in love with each other, while the constant interruption by a predetermined future

Apostol and Chu All the World’s a Stage Theatre Company’s latest “in your space” production, Miss Julie , has found its way to Indigo’s Opium Den, with the setting of Strindberg’s play relocated from Sweden to China, and the script adapted to match the altered time and place—1930s Shanghai. The set isn’t a set, really, not in the way most sets are constructed. The space is used more or less “as is,” creating a theatre out of the natural structure and dimensions of the Opium Den. The audience sits only feet away from the action, with no demarcation between “stage” and “offstage” areas. Not even the lighting accomplishes any noticeable separation of the space. There is a lack of theatricality about the show, an attempt, it seems, to create something very realistic, very believable, very personal, very intimate. At only an hour and fifteen minutes, this play is packed with drama—a real rollercoaster power struggle between the three characters. Class, sexuality, and gender are th

Addison and McGahan This island is crawling with bugs of all kinds. Even aphids, I’d imagine. But at no moment in my eight years of residence have they ever creeped and crawled in such a disturbing manner as they did last night in the Earl Ernst Lab Theatre at UH M ā noa. The play, by Tracy Letts, is called   Bug   and it lives up to its title. But it’s about more than just bugs. It’s about people. Some seriously messed up people. Lindsay Timmington McGahan plays Agnes White, a waitress living in a motel room on the outskirts of Oklahoma City. This is not the Oklahoma from the musical we’ll be seeing later in the year on Kennedy’s mainstage, but some of the characters maybe aren’t all that different. At the core, people are people. It’s experience that separates…or draws certain people together. McGahan’s portrayal of Agnes is outstanding—her movements, her accent, her timing—so natural, so in-the-moment, I sometimes forgot I was watching a play. A couple things happen to get

* Demon and Spirit The stage is a square platform in a soft wood hue surrounded on all sides by audience seats, behind which naked trees grow out of the walls. Sparse, entrapped openness. The only vibrancy comes from brightly colored strips of cloth curtaining the main entrance. The only clutter, from moving boxes littered about the stage. The boxes seem out of place, especially once the show begins and in through those curtains flow a chorus of ghostly women dressed in old-style field garb with cane knives and a single masked female wearing an ethereal Japanese Kimono. The chorus chants, poses, hums, flutes, saws, and screeches. The masked woman makes slow, deliberate movements in the style of Japanese Noh theatre and speaks in evocative poetic language. The effect is haunting. I’m no Noh expert, but I recognize performance that is stylized, heightened, beautiful. Then, a man and a younger man enter. They start talking while going through the boxes. Their conversation is sti

The house was nearly full last night for Manoa Valley Theatre’s preview of The 39 Steps . The show opens tonight for what I predict will be a very successful run. The play, adapted by Patrick Barlow from the 1915 novel by John Buchan and the 1935 film by Alfred Hitchcock, comically renders a spy-mystery-adventure drama, set in 1935, with the hero, Richard Hannay (Elitei Tatafu Jr.), travelling through various locations in England and Scotland determined to crack the case and clear his name. The scenes are hilarious, the action zooms right along, the theatricality consists of layers and levels, doors and windows, screens and frames, smoke, guns and fire, and an ever-revolving parade of comic characters portrayed by only two actors. And of course, a beautiful woman, times three, sort of. Tatafu and Stoltzfus as Annabella Schmidt This is Hannay’s story. The show opens with the handsome hero, of the wavy hair and the brown eyes and the pencil mustache, addressing the audience in