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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, January 30, 2002

STAGE REVIEW
'Haole Boy' exudes innocence, discovery in face of troubles

By Joseph T. Rozmiarek
Advertiser Theater Critic

PINKOSH: Founded Starving Artists troupe

'Haole Boy'

7:30 p.m. tomorrow; 8 p.m. Friday through Sunday; 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday

Hawaii Pacific University Theatre, Windward campus

$14 general; $10 students, seniors, military, HPU staff; $5 HPU students

375-1282

Mark Pinkosh is approaching 40?

Hawai'i audiences remember him as the precocious teenager from Windward O'ahu who broke from the established theater groups to help create the Starving Artists theater company — dedicated to producing challenging and original works.

Ten years later, Pinkosh, partnered with writer and director Godfrey Hamilton and, with developing ties to Britain, moved to Los Angeles.

Now, after another 10 years, Starving Artists continues to visit Hawai'i, with its production of "Haole Boy," written and performed by Pinkosh and first produced here in 1991.

Memories fade, but the characters seem softer now, particularly in final scenes that focus on an extended local family that shuns a young man during his losing battle with AIDS. The emotion is just as sharp, but it's seen with a bit more understanding for human foibles.

Still, the bulk of "Haole Boy" continues to exude the same blend of innocence and discovery with which the central character discovers bigotry in his world.

We first meet Christian at age 7, traveling with his military family for his first view of America. The character is well-named, for his journey is a veritable "Pilgrim's Progress."

Pinkosh delivers his role in a characteristic scatter-gun style, erupting with feeling dialogue, switching characters without stopping for breath and scattering emotional fall-out with the powerful abandon of a one-man Daisy Cutter.

The audience resonates with that delivery and is swept along by the story's current for an exciting ride.

The technique makes pauses and transitions between scenes especially important. Directed by Hamilton, those resting places emphasize important points in the script and allow the audience to temporarily regain its footing and regroup for the next roller coaster plunge.

And while the subject of bigotry is powerfully serious, Christian's naiveté and unsinkable spirit provoke the laughter of recognition. Audience members delight in seeing their neighbors satirically skewered and laugh almost as loud when they themselves feel the point. The parade of characters continually offers something new.

Christian's immediate family consists of a self-centered and impatient older sister, a straight-laced father and a pacifying mother. Their extended relatives unfold during an "All In the Family" road trip from New York to Los Angeles.

Because of Christian's birth in Germany, the New Jersey uncles insist on believing he can't speak English. A dying old man in Chicago pronounces him to be too thin, and the Rocky Mountain cousins determine him to be flawed because he's been schooled with black children.

Even a stop at Disneyland is sullied when Christian uncovers pale pink faces behind the costumed characters, and the luxury cruise to Hawai'i is spoiled when wealthy passengers forbid Christian's interaction with a playmate.

All this is a prelude to Christian's arrival in Hawai'i, the last assignment for his father and Christian's first experience at being a "haole."

His spontaneous and outgoing nature help Christian cope with changing elementary schools. He pairs up with playground leaders who show him the ropes and explain who's in and out of the group.

In intermediate school, he hangs with a clique of pot-smokers and earns the nickname, "Haole Moke." But he also experiences the more subtle currents of racism as he reaps softer punishment for misbehavior and is directed toward college-prep classes and away from vocational training.

High school is a foreign world of acne, raging hormones, and a pecking order that finds him among the misfits, hiding out in the bathrooms and laughed at even by the band kids.

Graduation is liberating but lands him a thankless job as a bank teller and the dubious distinction of filling a "haole quota."

Finally, after an affair with a woman and another with a man, Christian must come to terms with his own sexuality. He finds gay activists and liberal heterosexuals to be stiflingly introspective and too intense. But he stays loyal to Jimmy, his friend from intermediate school — now admittedly gay and estranged from his family.

In a skillful storytelling choice, Jimmy never appears as a character, leaving it to audience imagination to fill in the necessary details. We meet Jimmy only through others, notably in the final scenes through his Auntie Elenore, an old Portuguese lady, and Tony, Jimmy's older brother.

If the rest of "Haole Boy" were a meal, Auntie Elenore would be its frothy dessert. In her, Pinkosh brilliantly captures the speech patterns, mannerisms and essence of a dauntless spirit equally as oblivious to others' opinions as she is perceptive of their motives. The audience loves the character, and she is a fitting climax to all the others we've met during the evening.

By extension, the character of Tony serves as the denouement, a touching reminder of the need to stay in touch.

Christian does reconnect with his family, and the curtain finds him joyfully starting off on a new journey in search of himself.

See "Haole Boy" again, or for the first time. It's a noteworthy achievement for a "Hawai'i Boy" who left the Islands but who knows the importance of staying in touch.

Joseph T. Rozmiarek is The Advertiser's drama critic.