Taking up the challenge in 'The Cripple of Inishmaan'

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

Michael Hanuna, playing Billy Claven, prays before going to bed, in the play "The Cripple of Inishmaan" at Manoa Valley Theatre. Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser 'The Cripple of Inishmaan' A play by Martin McDonagh, produced by Manoa Valley Theatre Premieres at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday; repeats at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays, through July 28 Manoa Valley Theatre $25; $20 for seniors and military; $10 for those 25 and under 988-6131

So when he had the opportunity to audition for Manoa Valley Theatre's "The Cripple of Inishmaan," opening Wednesday, he was challenged to try to land the title role of Billy Claven in Irish playwright Martin McDonagh's dark comedy. In his words, Billy is "a cripple. The play is set in Ireland of the 1930s, well before the days of political correctness, so a handicapped person was called a cripple.

"Not only is Billy handicapped, he has TB," said Hanuna. "It's like the children I work with — they go through daily battles in their lives — and the character interested me to explore those who faced the same kinds of challenges."

For Hanuna, who is 28 and fit and portraying an 18-year-old who is supposed to have limited movement, it was a definite physical test.

"I'm so used to singing and dancing," Hanuna said. His last musical was "Annie" last year at Diamond Head Theatre, when he portrayed the baddie Rooster Hannigan.

"I think playing someone handicapped takes on a different entity, a real challenge," he said. "The physicalness of the character is restrictive, in a performing sense, and I'm so used to moving about, singing and dancing. In this regard, Billy's leg is turned out and his arm is bent inward, so I don't have the freedom I normally do."

He said director Vanita Rae Smith allowed him to decide whether his disability would be on his left or ride side and he opted for the left, since he's right-handed.

The disability was easier to deal with than the Irish accent. "Being a local boy, I'm used to talking li' dat, that kind of talk," he said.

Hanuna majored in music with a minor in theater, and is considering his options, possibly graduate school on the Mainland. "My short-term plans are to relax and recuperate," he said.

Two theater veterans play elderly sisters in the work. Jo Pruden is Kate Osbourne and Cecilia Fordham is Eileen Osbourne.

"I think they're maiden aunts, though they're called Mrs., in kind of a polite form of address," Pruden said. "We are sort of adopted aunts of young Billy and very protective of him. The sisters have lived their lives on the island, and they love him dearly and want the best for him."

"If you want political correctness, this is not it," Fordham said of her character. "She's mean and nasty, not like Jo's character, who is very nice. I think I got the part of this sister because I have a better mean streak."

Kate and Eileen run a general store, need very few material things and live rather tranquil lives.

The routine is disturbed when a Hollywood director infiltrates the community in hopes of working on a film that might involve Billy.

"The notion of Hollywood is so foreign to them," Pruden said. "Billy writes the sisters that he has a screen test and they ask, what the devil is a screen test. They just don't know."

Fordham said her role has a bit of an edge. "There is a line I say, something about 'and all the years we've taken care of him, and we didn't care if he was a crippled boy.' As the sister, I call him crippled Billy, but he prefers just Billy, but you don't always get what you prefer in life," she said. "But he knows what buttons to push; he knows I want candy from America, but I don't get it."

For Pruden, the Irish brogue is no problem, and she's happy to portray someone in her age bracket. "Vanita gave us birth dates, so we each know when our birthdays are," she said.

"The Irish is a bit hard to learn," said Fordham, whose assigned birth date is a year later. "Jo and I tend to listen to each other, trying to break the Irish that Americans expect to hear. Yet if we break too much, the audiences may not understand. It's something of a send-up by the playwright of that American Irish thing; he's making fun of it."