Pidgin fairy tales

Those oh-so-familiar characters Snow White, Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood and The Boy Who Cried Wolf get the local pidgin treatment in "Once Upon One Time," which returns to the spotlight this weekend at the Hawai'i Theatre.

The fractured fairy tales, which originally sprang from the fertile mind of Lisa Matsumoto in 1991 to wide critical acclaim and delighted audiences, were reprised in 1996 at Diamond Head Theatre.

Matsumoto also stars as Da Wicked Queen, who, with Da Mean Mongoose (Patrick Fujioka), wreaks havoc on the not-always-enchanted denizens of a mythical forest.

The production is directed by Tamara Hunt Montgomery, music by Paul Palmore, and musical direction by Roslyn.

Premiering at 7:30 p.m. today at Hawai'i Theatre; repeats at 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, and July 17-18 and 24-25; and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Thursday, July 16-17 and 22-24. Tickets are $15-$35. 528-0506.

Bloomer blooper

F.L. Cabacungan is Klinglehoff and Kyra Poppler is Louise Maske in the comedy "The Underpants," Manoa Valley Theatre's final show of the season. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

A takeoff on Carl Sternheim's 1910 farce, it's the tale of Louise Maske (Kyra Poppler), a German woman whose bloomers fall to her ankles as she watches a parade for the king. She's married to a bourgeois government clerk, but the unwanted notoriety makes her the object of desire among several men, including a poet named Versati, the baker Cohen and the elderly scientist Klinglehoff.

"Underpants" is directed by Betty Burdick.