Stage Review
'Karmic Slave' baffles as much as it entertains

By Joseph T. Rozmiarek
Advertiser Theater Critic

•	'Karmic Slave: Trapped on the Wheel of Reincarnation' Earle Ernst Lab Theatre 11 p.m., Friday and Saturday $7, $6, $3 956-7655

It's all about karma, something like your spiritual credit rating, and reincarnation, being reborn again and again until you accumulate enough karma to hop off the treadmill.

God also offers a clue to the performance — watch for something red. Red indicates the soul.

So we're off and running on a hourlong original production, sort of like the history of civilization from 20,000 B.C., in pantomime. Watch for the karma, watch for something red.

Well, writer and director Morinaka can't be faulted for shyness or for lacking ambition, but he — or God (in the form of actor Jeremy Pippin) — deserves to be chastised for giving out false clues. We search for the red flags and look for connections, but the promised study of karma through reincarnation fails to materialize.

What's left is a series of pantomimes to loud musical underscoring. Just about the only dramatic movement comes from high-heeled, bikini-clad, placard-carrying Jade Mikado, who silently introduces each scene.

At least, we can follow the time line.

A pair of Neanderthals toast fresh kill over an open fire. Squabbling primitives displace each other's religious icons. Egyptians lash slaves into piling up rocks. A grieving widow throws herself onto a funeral pyre.

Tony Pisculli choreographs stage combat for a pair of gladiators and a pair of sword-wielding samurai warriors, but Joan of Arc only smashes an altar and does her fighting offstage.

Jesus drives the money-changers from the temple (strangely, he wears no red, it only appears in the cash drawers), while Adolf Hitler is portrayed shaving in his bathroom (before donning his red swastika).

Now, if you're still trying to link red to karma and the progress of the soul through each reincarnation, you're going to come up short in the final scene. There, it all culminates in the bloom of a flower in the lobby of a Waikiki hotel, while cast and crew animate a street scene featuring props we have seen before.

If you're looking for a message, it seems to be dismal. Karma dissipates, or shifts from animal to vegetable. And why didn't Jesus have any?

I give up. But if anyone is still searching for meaning, creator Morinaka will answer questions in a post-show rap session following Friday's performance.