STAGE REVIEW
Revolutionary's tale unravels as theater

By Joseph Rozmiarek
Advertiser Theater Critic

•	'Ricepaper Airplane' When: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, through April 14 Where: Kumu Kahua Theatre Admission: $16-$5 Information: 536-4441

The play runs a long and difficult 2 1/2 hours, and suffers mainly from loose ends and its failure to strongly articulate a central point of view.

We first meet protagonist Sung Wha as an old man (Dann Seki) on his hospital deathbed, attended by his nephew (Roddy Kwock). As he drifts in and out of consciousness, Sung Wha recounts a lifetime of memories. The challenge for Kashiwada and Wat is to reconstitute those memories into a strong theater piece.

We are taken first to a Wahiawa plantation camp in the 1920s, where the young man Sung Wha is known to the overseers as a consistent troublemaker. Later, we step to the early 1900s to follow his journey from Korea to Manchuria to escape Japanese repression.

Structurally, Seki introduces the stories, then Kwock takes over as principal narrator and voice of the author. As the layers of history are pulled back, the audience asks itself questions. What is the meaning in the old man's life? What is the connection between him and his radical youth? What were the prime causes that set the young boy on this remarkably long and diverse path? What is the significance of the play's title?

It is incumbent on Kashiwada and Wat — who also directs — to provide answers. Lacking those, the audience becomes restive during the play and unfulfilled afterward.

We gravitate easily toward Sung Wha as a youth (Alvin Chan). The hot-headed youngster (we eventually learn that he is not yet 15) challenges the Japanese soldiers who terrorize his village and escapes to the north. He is befriended by a man and his daughter, who teach him how to read and challenge him to channel his random emotions into a supportable philosophy.

Sung Wha and the girl are driven to Manchuria, where they enter a marriage of the heart and where Sung Wha takes up arms. Continually eluding the Japanese military, Sung Wha leaves his wife and children and, by a series of serendipitous escapes, makes his way to Hawai'i.

At that point, the story becomes unfocused. After a few beatings by the plantation foremen, Sung Wha goes underground. He re-emerges sporadically amid various labor disputes and enjoys a bit of celebrity among college students in an unclear moment of 1960s activism.

Lacking a clear bridge between youth and age, the two parts of the character fail to connect and the old man's life in Hawai'i loses significance. Chan and Seki seem not only to be playing different ages, but different characters.

Even the title image is given only tangential reference. Somewhere in his middle years Sung Wha builds a large, kite-like representation of an airplane from bamboo and spare bicycle parts. He intends to use it to fly himself back to Korea. When the device is lost in a fire, Sung Wha similarly abandons focus.

We wonder at the level of Sung Wha's self-awareness. Does he know that the airplane, like his dreams, is only an illusion? He makes other kites, only to cut their strings and let them fly away. At one point, his nephew hesitates to give the old man a ticket to visit Korea — speculating that reality may be too strong to handle.

Sung Wha's personal direction is never clear in this production. He is at first a follower and always a malcontent. His movements are reactive and random. He never articulates or follows his own clear path. Despite his romantic longings for an idealized homeland, he never returns to Korea. Despite his claims to have matched with a soulmate, he never attempts to seek out his wife and children.

In the clear light of objectivity, the old Sung Wha is primarily a talker, reminiscing about events from half a century past, longing for an ideal that he never fully grasped and did little to achieve.

His story offers some poignancy, but without self-knowledge the character offers some pathos, but not enough substance to hold or inspire an audience.