Book-CD combo turns 'Talk Story' into take-home feast
By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Books Editor
Every year after its holiday cabaret, "Christmas Talk Story," Honolulu Theatre for Youth makes a tidy bit of extra income selling bound copies of the selected playlets that make up the annual event.
"These things sell like crazy — 400 or 500 a year — and most of the buyers are people who normally don't read plays," said HTY artistic director Mark Lutwak.
The difference is that once they've seen the play and it's come alive for them, even people who aren't screenplay readers want to be able to experience the works again, and share them with others.
This idea — that a play has a multifaceted life, on the page, in the ear and in the eye, and that each one opens up the piece in a different way — is behind "Honolulu Theatre for Youth Presents Christmas Talk Story" (Bess Press, $14.95), a new book and CD combination that serves as a "best of" from the past five years of "Christmas Talk Story" productions.
There are 25 stories in the book, 17 of which are additionally recorded on the CD.
"Honolulu Theatre for Youth Presents Christmas Talk Story," the new book and CD collection, is in local bookstores (Bess Press, $14.95). Books purchased directly from the theater earn them a bookseller's percentage; call 839-9885 or go to www.htyweb.org to order. "Christmas Talk Story" the sixth anniversary best-of performance by Honolulu Theatre for Youth in partnership with Kumu Kahua • 3:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday and Dec. 6, 13 and 20; 3:30 p.m. Sunday and Dec. 7, 14 and 21, Tenney Theatre, St. Andrew's Cathedral. Sign-interpreted show, 3:30 p.m. Dec. 14 • $12 students, $16 adults, $8 ages 3-18 and 60-plus, free under 3. Reservations: 839-9885.
Publisher Buddy Bess of Bess Press once saw the nifty CD-embedded-in-book-cover format somewhere and vowed he'd do one of those himself someday. Just less than a year ago, Bess, who is always looking for new book material with strong local appeal, came to the 2002 "Christmas Talk Story." The very short plays with their pidgin cadence, Island locations and warm-hearted themes are exactly the sort of thing that sell well in Hawai'i at holiday time — particularly for those who want to send a bit of the Islands to homesick expats elsewhere.
To get your fill of HTY holiday works
"Let's make a book," Bess said to Lutwak.
They did so at what in the publishing business amounts to supersonic speed.
The theater already had another partner in Hawai'i Public Radio, which had long been recording some of the "Christmas Talk Story" material each year and playing the stories over the air during the holidays. This time, however, the recording session took place in June, and then both the tapes and the manuscripts went off to Asia to be turned into a book, which is now in stores, with HTY receiving a portion of the proceeds from the sale.
"Christmas Talk Story" was originally inspired by a concept Lutwak encountered in Seattle called "The Voices of Christmas," in which a bunch of actors and singers put together songs and anecdotes from their own experiences of the holidays in childhood.
That first year, Lutwak had the idea of bringing a couple of writers together with the actors and production crew from the theater and seeing what emerged when they laid the topic of the holidays in Hawai'i before them.
The writers he chose were playwright Y York (who also happens to be his wife, and who, with Lutwak, was very new to Hawai'i at the time) and University of Hawai'i professor Gary Pak, author of "The Watcher of Waipuna and Other Stories" and "A Ricepaper Airplane."
The setting was informal, with everybody sitting around just talking story and grinding on goodies that folks had brought in.
There was so much food, in fact, that York, who wasn't yet fully familiar with Island foods, thought the whole play might end up being about eating. She recalls having to stop everything from time to time to ask how to spell haupia or dobash, or what mochi was.
As everyone shared their early Christmas memories, York and Pak scribbled and scribbled. Then they went home to concoct such stories as York's "Minneapolis," in which an Island-raised Filipino-American boy takes his first trip to the Mainland — at Christmas, when the snow is thick on the ground in Minnesota; and Pak's "Grampa's Songs," about listening to his grandfather play the guitar and sing Christmas songs so poignantly that he could see the snow falling even though he was in Hawai'i.
The stories were true group efforts. York recalls how the actor BullDog, who would play the boy in "Minneapolis" offered her a tiny editing note that helped make the scene stronger. The boy comments that he knows his mom must be talking about him on the phone, but he can't be sure what she's saying because she's not speaking English. York was thinking how her own family would do this, and BullDog knew just what she was talking about, but he suggested she change the line to "Mom is speaking Tagalog, so I know it's about me."
"It was just better. It made it specific and brought in real aspects of an Island childhood, giving this story resonance here," York recalled.
"Minneapolis" remains one of BullDog's favorite "Christmas Talk Story" plays, he says, because of the gentle mix of humor and the sweet confusion of a boy who just can't fathom cold and snow. BullDog especially enjoys the part where the boy puts his hand in the freezer to see if he can stand the cold. "I love that story," BullDog said, and he's glad to see it revived for the book/CD project and for the "best of" show featuring 17 of the favorite stories from the past five years, plus songs and other good stuff, which opens Saturday at Tenney Theatre.
