Retro duds can go on stage | The Honolulu Advertiser

Comment, blog & share photos

Retro duds can go on stage | The Honolulu Advertiser | Hawaii's Newspaper

Posted on: Thursday, January 9, 2003

THE LEFT LANE
Retro duds can go on stage

Advertiser Staff and News Services

If your annual New Year's cleaning included a pile of dated but good-quality clothes you no longer need, here's an idea for putting them to good use: Manoa Valley Theatre is always looking for clothing for its costume department. Men's suits and women's gowns are especially needed, but anything retro may also find its way onto the stage. Accessories also are in demand. In fact, the only things they don't need are super-casual clothes such as T-shirts and shorts.

To find out how to donate, call Athena Espana at the Manoa Valley Theatre costume shop: 988-6131. Leave a message with your phone number if she's not there.

Wouldn't it be fun to see your clothes on stage?

Making an impact

Chinese actress Mei Ting appears battered and bruised in the role of a housewife beaten by her husband.

Associated Press

Director Zhang Jiandong knew he was challenging Chinese sensibilities with a television series focusing on domestic violence. What he didn't count on was it becoming a commercial — and emotional — triumph. Viewers, including some victims of abuse, are praising the realism and gutsiness of "Don't Talk to Strangers," a 23-part series that ran on Chinese networks and is being marketed abroad.

"Don't Talk to Strangers" has been credited with bringing the uncomfortable subject into the open in an unprecedented way for China, where traditional culture teaches that family problems should stay within the family. Instead of an uneducated farmer or drunken factory worker — the typical profiles of Chinese wife beaters — Zhang made his villain a suave, respected doctor living an upper-middle-class lifestyle. The jarring effect is magnified by the scary realism of the beatings, as Dr. An Jiahe (Feng Yuanzheng) leaves his frail schoolteacher wife bloody and bruised. "You have to be realistic to make an impact," said Zhang.

'Burnout guy' returns

Mike Fleiss may be a successful TV producer now, creator of WB Network's shot-on-Maui "High School Reunion," airing Sundays and Thursdays at 9 p.m. on KFVE, but he still didn't look forward to his 20th high school reunion. Fleiss, who describes his high-school self as the "alienated parking-lot burnout guy," says his wife helped plan their high school reunion and was "emotionally charged" about the whole thing. "I (was) so nauseous about this, that this seems like a real fertile area for a reality show," he said.

"I think everyone has got something to prove when they go back to their high school reunion," Fleiss says. "That was sort of our premise for making the show."

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos