Play visits kids' view of Pearl Harbor
By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Entertainment Writer
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| Jason Kanda, front, and, from left, BullDog, Reb Beau Allen and Janice Terukina, star in "Nothing is the Same."
Brad Goda "Nothing Is The Same"' 1:30 and 4:30 p.m. Saturday and Oct. 23 Richardson Theatre, Fort Shafter $16 general, $8 seniors and youths 839-9885, www.htyweb.org Also: 1:30 and 4:30 p.m. Nov. 6, 13 at Tenney Theatre |
One minute, fourWahiawa 11-year-olds are playing marbles in a church yard on a Sunday morning. The next, they're witnesses to a surprise attack on O'ahu that changes their lives forever. They're suddenly and confusingly identified, in their community and among each other, by their Japanese, Korean and Filipino ancestry.
Honolulu playwright Y York's "Nothing is the Same" visits the immediate post-attack lives of four fictional Wahiawa kids. But the play's stories of gas-mask tests, evening blackouts, schoolyard racism and hiding of ethnicity were pulled from the real-life memories of O'ahu residents who were children at the time of the attack.
Honolulu Theatre for Youth performances of "Nothing is the Same" begin Saturday at Richardson Theatre.
"Nothing is the Same" is the result of a collaborative project involving Honolulu Theatre for Youth, the University of Hawai'i-Manoa History Department and Wahiawa Elementary School. Under York's guidance, a group of Wahiawa Elementary School students collected oral histories from community residents who were of similar age during the attack.
York interviewed the residents first, prepared short histories to help students formulate proper questions, and sat in on the chats students had with her subjects.
The students turned their oral histories into short plays, which were performed for the school, the community and their interview subjects in March 2003.
York's "Nothing is the Same" draws inspiration from her original interviews, the students' oral histories, and published historical accounts such as Dorinda Makanaonalani Stagner Nicholson's "Pearl Harbor Child: A Child's View of Pearl Harbor — From Attack to Peace" (Woodson House Publishing, 1998).
The result is a script brimming with moments of knowing humor, unexpected terror and deep sadness.
"The play doesn't even scratch the surface of the stories," said York. Along with the students, she collected more memories from witnesses than she could use.
Hoping her play's real-life accounts would still connect with children six decades later, York paid close attention to subjects the students — surprisingly and not so surprisingly — found most fascinating in their interviews.
"They were really fascinated when somebody said they used to steal pineapples," said York, still perplexed. "They also got into the necessity of blacking out the windows at night, and the beaches having barbed wire.
"They were fascinated that everybody would go swimming in Lake Wilson. Everybody wanted to do a little skit on Lake Wilson."
One story that riveted both York and the students — and made it into "Nothing is the Same" — was an in-classroom "gas-mask test" using real tear gas.
""They made the students take a breath and run out of the classroom," said York. "When (interviewee) Howard Oda told the class about that, we couldn't believe it. It was just amazing."
Amazing, but very real. Arizona Memorial historian Daniel Martinez — who spoke to the students on field trips to the memorial — explained a child's perspective of the attack with a story his mother told him.
"She was at St. Patrick's Church (in Kaimuki) that morning. She went out on the church steps and saw all of the planes flying over," Martinez said of a scene familiar to many Honolulu children on Dec. 7, 1941.
"My mother — who was 9 years old — interpreted it as an air show, because she was innocent. She thought it was the greatest airshow she'd ever seen.
"She remembered my grandmother crying and saying that Japanese soldiers might be in the front yard the next day.
"They just did not know what the next day or that afternoon would bring. And they didn't know when it would stop."
Martinez considered the student project and York's resulting play important educational tools.
"One of the things that to me is a bit of a tragedy in the retelling of Pearl Harbor is the fact that the civilian story is not really told and is not really out there for people to understand," said Martinez.
"The best way to tell the story of Pearl Harbor is through the voices of children who knew what the experience was like."
Reach Derek Paiva at 525-8005 or dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com.
