Critic's Choice: Theater
Mini-reviews of current stage productions by Advertiser theater critic Joseph Rozmiarek
"Over the River and Through the Woods": A Neil Simon look-alike family comedy by Joe DiPietro filled with long laughs and bittersweet sentimentality. Excellently acted and a guaranteed sellout for Manoa Valley Theatre. Repeats at 8 p.m. today and Saturday, and 4 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $25 general, $20 for seniors and military, $10 for those 25 and younger. 988-6131.
"To the Last Hawaiian Soldier": The improbable premise links a contemporary Hawaiian activist with a historical revolutionary, but powerfully structures action that bridges time and space. Excellently directed and featuring a fine performance by Moses Goods III in the central roles. Repeats at 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays, through Feb. 10, at Kumu Kahua Theatre. Tickets are $16 general; $13 for seniors and for those in groups of 10 or more; $10 students (on Thursdays only: $13; $11 for seniors and for groups of 10 or more; $5 students and the unemployed). 536-4441.
"The Vagina Monologues": How could you miss this chance to listen to bold talk about the place "down there" that goes unnamed and ignored? The reader's theater cast of three makes it a warm evening that is always entertaining and only selectively offensive. Repeats 8 p.m. today, 5 and 8 p.m. Saturday, and 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday at the Hawai'i Theatre. Tickets are $20-$45, with discounts for theater members, students, seniors and military; also $5 hana hou discount for those with ticket stubs from the first week's performances (subject to availability). 528-0506, 526-4400 (732-7733 group discounts). Also on Maui: Brooke Shields joins Michele Shay and Amy J. Carle at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 8 p.m. Feb. 8, 5 and 8 p.m. Feb. 9, and 2 and 7 p.m. Feb. 10 at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center's Castle Theater; $10-$45 at box office; discounts for MACC members and groups of 12, except for Feb. 9 shows. (808) 242-7469.
• • •
Critic's Choice: Exhibits
Mini-reviews of current exhibits by Advertiser art critic Virginia Wageman
Escape from the Vault: The Contemporary Museum's Collection Breaks Out (The Contemporary Museum, through March 24; 526-1322). With limited exhibition space, rarely does The Contemporary Museum have the opportunity to display its own superb collection. Periodically, works "escape from the vault" in shows such as this one, with selections from the permanent collection occupying the entire building. Works by 70 artists are on view, many of them for the first time in Honolulu.
Pen, Pencil, and Brush: American Drawings and Watercolors, 1850-1950 (Honolulu Academy of Arts, through March 17; 532-8700). Likewise, works on paper are rarely exhibited owing to their fragile nature. The academy is showing a choice selection of drawings and watercolors, with exquisite examples by Mary Cassatt, Winslow Homer and John Marin, among others.
9-11: Response and Remembrance (Koa Gallery, Kapi'olani Community College, through Feb. 9; 734-9375). With 140 pieces by 110 artists, this rambling show continues in KCC's Lama Library. Artists' responses to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 range from the tortured expressions of Masami Teraoka and Jodi Endicott to Linny Morris Cunningham's gorgeous photographs of the World Trade Center, which she made in 1978 and recently unearthed, and George Woollard's elegiac "Flight of the Souls," celebrating the thousands who lost their lives in the attacks. It's difficult to park at the college, but parking is free on Saturdays, when the gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and the library is open until 1 p.m.
