Stage Scene
Former first lady's fate sealed by her son
By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Staff Writer
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| "Over the River and Through the Woods" confronts the plight of Nick (Joe Abraham), a young executive whose grandparents try to set him up with Caitlin (Lisa Young) to stop him from moving to Seattle.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser 'The Insanity Case of Mrs. A. Lincoln' Presented by The Actors Group Premieres at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday; repeats at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 4 p.m. Sundays, through Feb. 3 Yellow Brick Studio, 625 Keawe St. $10 591-7999 'Over the River and Through the Woods' Premieres at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday; repeats at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 4 p.m. Sundays, through Jan. 27 Manoa Valley Theatre $25; $20 for seniors and military; $10 for those 25 and younger 988-6131 'To the Last Hawaiian Soldier' Premieres 8 p.m. Thursday; repeats at 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays, through Feb. 10 Kumu Kahua Theatre $16; $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; $10 students 536-4441 |
Ask yourself: Which one is right for you?
Mary Todd Lincoln's mysterious malaise
San Francisco-based actor/playwright Richard C. Goodman's stage play "The Insanity Case of Mrs. A. Lincoln" takes audiences back to a surprisingly little-known year in the life of former first lady Mary Todd Lincoln.
In 1875, Mrs. Lincoln's last surviving son, Robert, launched an insanity hearing seeking to place his then-estranged mother in an asylum. While the question of whether Mrs. Lincoln was truly insane, wildly eccentric or simply suffering from profound grief remains uncertain to this day, it's difficult not to look at her "case" as something essentially rooted in its own kind of lunacy.
Robert assembled a dubious crew of sales clerks, doctors and hotel employees, among others, to offer witness to his mother's odd behavior — she heard voices and paid maids to spend nights in her room because she feared being alone. A lawyer, Robert also testified that he had been embarrassed by his mother's odd behavior for years. Mrs. Lincoln herself was barely allowed to speak with her attorney.
A jury of 12 men took just 10 minutes to declare her "insane, and ... a fit person to be sent to a state hospital for the insane." Mrs. Lincoln was sent to a private Illinois sanitarium.
Goodman's play, exploring the events between Mrs. Lincoln's arrest and eventual release from the asylum, adds another twist to the question of her insanity: Could the former first lady also have been a victim of the era's bias against women?
"Everybody who comes to see the play has to make up their own mind on whether she was rightfully or wrongfully put away," said director Brad Powell. "She was hard to get along with and people didn't like her. Generally, it's agreed that she was wrongfully put away just because of the way it was done."
What's Powell's own verdict?
"You know, I've left it completely open," said Powell. "If I were to direct it with a feeling one way or the other, it would be prejudiced. And honestly, I don't know."
Gently breaking ties that bind
"Over the River and Through the Woods" covers familiar familial territory: the eternal power struggle between a wisened older generation and a wiseacre younger one. In this case, four strong-willed Italian American grandparents versus their much-loved grandson who wants to move away from home.
Nick, a single twentysomething marketing executive, has lived near the Hoboken, N.J., homes of his maternal and paternal grandparents for most of his life. He visits the four of them each Sunday for dinner and to dutifully lend an ear to their rantings.
Grandma Aida thinks everyone in the world could use another helping of food. Grandpa Frank has, of late, been running into stuff with his car. Grandpa Nunzio and Grandma Emma are, Nick says in an audience aside, "the loudest people I've ever met."
So naturally, when Nick announces during one particular Sunday gathering that he has received a work promotion that requires a relocation to Seattle, Emma and Nunzio and Frank and Aida just about lose their ziti.
"For them, this idea that the family should stay together is tradition," director Betty Burdick said of Nick's grandparents. "For them, family is what it's all about. You survive because of your family. You rely on the family and you support the family. A lot of what happens is because they simply don't understand why Nick has to move away from the family."
What "happens" is much old-school advice, endless meddling, and even a semi-desperate attempt at matchmaking (with a relative of one of the grandparents' canasta partners) to keep Nick from moving. The result? Nick thinks his grandparents are nuttier than ever.
"I looked at the script and didn't see how it could miss," Burdick said. Joe DiPietro's script was first staged off Broadway to much critical acclaim in 1998. "It's really well written. It's very funny. But it's also touching, without getting too sentimental or maudlin. It's got some depth to it, but primarily, it's just really funny."
Making political protests pono
Sean T.C. O'Malley's stage drama "To the Last Hawaiian Soldier" juxtaposes the pre-overthrow events of King David Kalakaua, his sister Lili'uokalani and revolutionist Robert Wilcox, with the fictional story of a modern Hawaiian man at odds with the pace of the political battle for sovereignty.
"The modern-day character, Junior Koalua, is frustrated with ... the legal battles in terms of the war of words, and he wants to have action," said O'Malley. "He wants to do something." Koalua reads a historical essay, written by his girlfriend, on the legal implications of rebellion and context of law and finds comparisons between what he would like to do and what Wilcox was able to accomplish. In particular, he finds inspiration in Wilcox's unsuccessful revolution against King Kalakaua in 1889.
"One of the central questions of the play is: What is appropriate to accomplish a political protest?" said O'Malley. "And is it appropriate to use violence in political protest? If so, under what circumstances?"
The play unfolds in flashbacks and flash-forwards as the actions of Wilcox, Kalakaua and Lili'uokalani are dramatized based on Koalua's interpretation of what he is reading.
"Everything from the past informs, inspires and drives the present forward," said O'Malley. For example, as Wilcox holes himself up in the palace against the militia, Koalua defends himself from law enforcement officials demanding his surrender. O'Malley said he refrained from pounding audiences with his own opinions of the events or their outcomes, instead asking that they come to their own conclusions.
"I think what I would like people to think about is that there are a great many choices in how to carry out a political protest," said O'Malley. "One of those choices is with violence. And obviously, as we have seen in the recent year, there is a huge variation of scale and scope as to whether you go out and do a sit-down strike someplace or commit a horrible act of war or terrorism. And there is an infinite number of gradations in that scale.
"The question is: What is worth it? What are the consequences of the use of violence in political protest? These are all things that everyone needs to consider and be aware of. And none of it exists in a vacuum."
