Posted on: Wednesday, September 22, 2004
STAGE REVIEW
'Cockroach' is a visual delight
By Joseph T. Rozmiarek
Advertiser Drama Critic
"How Da B-52 Cockroach Learned to Fly" has everything local audiences have come to love and expect from a Lisa Matsumoto play — pidgin dialogue, exaggerated characters, color, movement and the delight of self-recognition.
• Where: Kennedy Theatre, University of Hawai'i-Manoa • When: 7 p.m., Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday • Admission: $15 general, $12 seniors, military and UH faculty and staff, $10 non-UH-Manoa students and children, and $3 UH-Manoa students. • Information: 956-7655 Like the first outing, this restaging succeeds because style trumps substance. The minimal plot line has a band of cockroaches — tired of life among the garbage — seeking a better place in the insect kingdom. They unsuccessfully try to imitate other insects until they realize their true calling is to annoy humans.
Music by Nick Kenworthy-Browne, costumes by Sandra Finney and set by Joseph Dodd all work in the background. The push comes from Hunt-Montgomery's go-for-broke staging. But while the pumping adrenaline is infectious, it also works against the material.
Amid the shouting and posturing, dialogue and lyrics get lost — especially in the opening scenes. Eventually we catch up but find ourselves straining too hard to understand what's being said.
Andrew Shimabuku There is a lot to see.
The audience roars when the cockroaches are threatened with a six-foot-long rubber slipper. Other outsized props and puppets add delightful fantasy, and the cockroaches' initial entrance, crawling out of a huge flattened garbage bag, is an inspired touch.
Charles Timtim plays lead cockroach Kimo with buoyant good nature and earnest dedication to upping his social standing.
Timtim's performance is in contrast to his role of Othello for Honolulu Theatre for Youth two years ago. Both characters are bigger than life and make it clear that he can project a large personality.
Noelle Poole plays the Queen Bee, a part cut from the same material as Matsumoto's signature role as "Da Wicked Queen" in her "One Upon One Time" trilogy. Poole is appropriately braying, bossy and over the top.
Add gangs of ants, termites, butterflies, and Norman Munoz as the Reverend Mantis, and you have a mix that will keep the youngsters glued to the backs of the seats in front of them.
All the stock ingredients are abundantly whipped up for this children's production, directed at the University of Hawai'i by Tamara Hunt-Montgomery. It's a reworking of the 1995 UH production "Das How Come," inspired by the Kipling "Just So" stories.
'How Da B-52 Cockroach Learned to Fly'
Ultimately, because the production's physicality trumps its aural clarity, it may be best to simply enjoy it visually.
Charles Timtim plays Kimo the cockroach in the Kennedy Theatre production of "How Da B-52 Cockroach Learned to Fly."
