Everybody Wants More 'Glitter in the Pa‘akai'
by Eleanor Svaton
As part of ConFest 2024 under the banner of the Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists (CAATA), taking place in Hawai‘i after a covid-induced delay of several years, Glitter in the Paʻakai, a hana keaka written and directed by Joshua “Baba” Kamoani‘ala Tavares, will be presented Friday night, May 24, 2024, on the Mainstage of John F. Kennedy Theatre at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (UHM). The production was first presented on February 7, 2024, and had a five-show run in the Earle Ernst Lab Theatre at the same location, and then it was remounted for one performance for the ‘Ahahui Noi‘i No‘eau ‘Ōiwi (ANNO) Noi‘i Nowelo: An Inaugural Conference on Hawaiian and Indigenous Performance, held March 14 and 15, 2024, staged outdoors on the grass beside the theatre, under a big tent, with tables and food for all the guests of the conference attending the play—it was staged at a genuine lūʻau.
Glitter in the Paʻakai is set outdoors under a tent, with tables and food for all the guests of the first-birthday lūʻau that brings one ‘ohana together in the same yard that has held them all for the lūʻau before that, and the one before that, with the ghosts of past experiences layered in each character’s mind, just below the present narrative. Written in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi with some English and Pidgin (Hawaiʻi Creole English), Glitter in the Paʻakai takes place on the island of Hawai‘i, in Hōnaunau, Kona, welcoming the audience into what I’ve heard my international students from Europe and South America refer to longingly as “a real lūʻau”—something they complained they could never find while visiting the islands—only the touristy stuff. Playwright Tavares, who also composed all original mele ʻāina for this hana keaka with each character in mind, invites the audience into a real lūʻau with characters that embody kanaka o ka ʻāina, characters you recognize a bit—or maybe they’re dead ringers—from your own ‘ohana if you have family from here in these islands, where culture developed sustainably for millennia but has been in flux for centuries. Where the ghosts of past experiences layer the land that wears a banner incongruent with its history.
In reflecting upon my experience both seeing the play and attending a Response at the conference the day after, the role of the mother, the matriarch of the family, especially in relation to queerness, stood out as a concept in opposition to rigid patriarchal definitions of family gender roles that prescribe the kinds of love humans are allowed to bestow and receive. Maya Rudolph’s SNL Mother’s Day monologue captures the queer definition of “Mother” in pop culture right now: she’s powerful, she does it all, she is to be worshiped. The article “Pop icons are ‘mothers’ now. The LGBTQ ballroom scene wants credit” (25 Mar. 2023) by Samantha Chery for the Washington Post underscores the importance of recognizing and respecting the cultural and historical roots of such terms, especially their connections to the experiences of Black transgender women and the broader LGBTQ community. A central theme of Glitter in the Paʻakai is a mother’s love, and the structure of the hana keaka highlights how patriarchal ideology at the heart of male-dominated monotheistic religions undermines the strength of the family by creating fear for not adhering to and enforcing rigid gender roles.
One of the questions we considered in the Response the next day at the conference was the significance of the loss of the patriarch in this family. I got the sense, though I couldn’t understand most of the language, that the loss of the dominant father figure was a major blow to the family from which they haven’t recovered. Yet the message of the hana keaka in the end is that a mother’s love is all encompassing. A mother accepts all her children. A mother understands how we all contribute, how all minds and hearts are special and valuable. It is a mother’s love that can build a family strong enough to withstand loss, even hers someday, because a mother spins a web and weaves all of her family together with the strength of her love. But a mother can only do so when her strength and centrality to the family structure is recognized and celebrated, when she is supported and revered. This is what the patriarchal religious ideology subverts—the strength and power of a mother’s love as central to family and community building—instead enforcing the ideology of the father’s masculine strength and domination over the family as the natural order of human relations, which limits the diversity and therefore true strength of families and communities. We end up with people who don’t fit in the allowed structure kept outside.
Glitter in the Paʻakai is a masterpiece, in my humble opinion, and will be both staged and studied for generations to come. As a mother, it inspires me to love my family without fear or stipulation; as a mother of keiki o ka ʻāina, it helps me see the possibilities for their lives more fully; as a settler on this land, it reminds me to do the work of decolonizing my thoughts by studying and living in accordance with the values and wisdom of Hawaiian culture; and as a world citizen, it urges me to share my thoughts in this way, to hopefully inspire others to use art and performance to think critically about our collective existence and the families and communities we are building for our children’s futures.
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