Popular playwrights back for new season

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

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Kumu Kahua's 2003-04 season Curtain times: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays Kumu Kahua Theatre, 46 Merchant St. Season tickets: $60 for new subscribers, $50 for renewals (available now) Single tickets: Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, $16 general, $13 for seniors and groups of 10 or more, $10 for students; Thursdays, general, $11 seniors, $5 students and unemployed. Available two weeks to a month before opening Reservations: 536-4222

The comedy about everyday folks checking out bargains at Longs Drugs is likely to be a crowd-pleaser, following in the footsteps of Cataluna's Kumu Kahua triumphs "Da Mayah," "Ulua," "Aloha Friday" and "Super Secret Squad."

Edward Sakamoto, the most produced playwright in Kumu history, also is offering a new work, a ghost theme laced with Hawai'i history.

"Last year, we tried to feature playwrights like Lee and Ed, who have been successful — writers we were proud of," said Harry Wong III, Kumu Kahua artistic director. "This year, we're happy that some of them are back with new plays. It's great to have a canon of local writers aboard."

A production completed in 1976 and still sitting on the shelf finally will be produced. Dennis Carroll's docudrama on the 1930s Massie murder case is based on public documents, printed reports and other sources. "It was tough to stage then, with many legal questions," said Wong. Finally the play is ready for an audience.

Pidgin guru Lee Tonouchi, historian-dramatist Victor Nalani Kneubuhl and a stable of new writers offering life stories in a Christmas partnership with the Honolulu Theatre for Youth also are slated.

Kumu productions are staged at its intimate 100-seat playhouse in the heart of downtown Honolulu. The group specializes in works on Island themes, sometimes comically and other times seriously or historically. In its three decades, Kumu has produced more than 100 plays, attracting Hawai'i talent on both sides of the footlights, from playwrights to directors, designers to actors.

The complete season, with specific play dates to be announced later:

• "Folks You Meet in Longs," by Lee Cataluna. A cross-section of folks trek in and out of the drugstore, from slackers to cops, bulls to titas, and employees share their complaints and secret lives. Cataluna, a columnist for The Advertiser, also wrote "You Somebody," with music by Keola Beamer, which Diamond Head Theatre produced last summer. Opens in August.
• "Obake," by Edward Sakamoto. The ghost tale in which spirits from the dead seek revenge pays homage to obake stories and Japanese horror flicks, but is set on a Big Island plantation in the 1920s. Sakamoto is Kumu's most-produced playwright and author of last season's "Aloha Las Vegas." Opens in October.
• "Christmas Talk Story 2003." In a co-production with the Honolulu Theatre for Youth, local writers celebrate the Island holiday experience through the eyes of a child; quickly becoming an HTY/Kumu Kahua tradition. Opens in November.
• "Massie/Kahahawai," compiled by Dennis Carroll. A controversial Honolulu murder case laced with racial overtones, which became an obsession of the American media in the early 1930s, remains one of Hawai'i's most compelling case histories. Carroll has fashioned a docudrama, drawn from court records, news reports and other sources, that likely will rekindle interest in the Massie case. Among the outcries of the times: "White woman raped by locals!" and "Husband and mother take revenge!?" Opens in January 2004.
• "Fanny and Belle: The Story of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson and Her Daughter Belle Osbourne," by Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl. A historical drama about a mother and a daughter whose epic travels take them across America to Europe, Hawai'i and Samoa. Fanny's marriage to author Robert Louis Steven is the best-known event in the lives of this remarkable family. Kneubuhl wrote "The Conversion of Ka'ahumanu," "Emmalehua" and "Ola Na Iwi." Opens in March 2004.
• "Gone Feeshing," by Lee Tonouchi. Two brothers sit by the surf, recalling their lives together and with their dad, in a comic look and listen to local types reflecting on fishing, cooking and father-and-son relationships, from Hawai'is Pidgin Guerrilla, the editor of "Hybolics." Opens in May 2004.