STAGE REVIEW
Imagination unlocks mystery in highly visual 'Eco Circus'

By Joseph T. Rozmiarek
Advertiser Drama Critic

Endangered species become acts in ring

Imagination rules in "Eco Circus," which is playing at Kennedy Theatre. Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser

There's not much dialogue or plot in this original youth theater play written by Karen Yamamoto Hackler now in production at

the University of Hawai'i. It's the result of a collaboration with director Peggy Hunt and five graduate students, which presents animals representing endangered species in the context of circus acts.

It opens with a couple of youngsters (Kevin Pacheco and Lelani Dibble) teasing a young friend (Mitchell Goo) about his lack of electronic gadgets. The boy responds with imagination — he reads, he builds things, and he helps his parents re-establish native Hawaiian plants.

Imagination becomes the key by which the children unlock the mystery of strange and fascinating animals that may soon disappear from the Earth. The university's production crew provides the show's actors a means to unlock that mystery in physical performance terms.

The magic begins when Storm Stafford's bedroom set transforms into a circus tent. The show catches fire when Thomas Morinaka makes his long and mysterious entry through the audience. Here, Hunt's gift for storytelling through dance and masks and costume designer Sandra Finney's theatrical vision take over. And masks by New York artist Lily Pink develop life and personality.

Instead, we see a bird — a huge, scowling bird with an ugly bald head and hump of black, glossy feathers. It minces and twitches and suspiciously works its way through the audience — glaring coldly at the human creatures that surround it. Once on stage, the bird throws back its wide wings and becomes — the circus ringmaster.

By now, the hard-line realists in the audience have figured out that there's an actor inside. We can sort out that the magnificent condor's skull is a headpiece. Morinaka's face is in full view and it's his voice that speaks for the ringmaster. But the transformation is complete. We willingly suspend our objective judgment and eagerly enter this new world.

The rest of the show is a string of circus acts — not literally death-defying — that reveal charm or distinct personality.

Nina Darnowsky and Claudia Elmore are the chubby and cuddly koala bears, bouncing their stuffed babies off a springboard and catching them in their generous pouches.

Jennifer Butler and Malia Bowlby do the stilt work, appearing first as tall, gawky whooping cranes and later as hulking African gorillas, grandly filling the space with their exaggerated size.

Hawai'i is represented by the fruit bat (Christoph Ravenlock, who also plays percussion), a pair of owls, and a trio of humuhumunukunukuapua'a — that aren't endangered but glide on scooters through threatened coral reefs. California is represented by giant kangaroo rats.

Audience favorites include Asian monkeys (Kellee Blanchard, Kelly DeRosario, and Trisha Lee) that dangle from ropes and do some fancy break-dancing, and a quartet of red-eyed tree frogs from Central America (Blanchard and DeRosario, joined by Christopher Quiocho and Yoshika Miyachi), who dance a lively calypso limbo.

But the star of the show has to be Christine Berwin as the Nanur skink from New Zealand. Berwin does a wonderful free-form gymnastic routine as she slithers in from the rear of the theater and across a large rope net stretched at the rear of the stage. When you think you see her hanging upside down by suction toes, the illusion is complete.

There's a bit of a message in the show, but mostly it's an hour of visual fun. Even your toddlers may enjoy it.

Correction: "Eco Circus" will be playing at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at Kennedy Theatre, University of Hawai'i. Incorrect dates appeared in a previous version of this story.