What you might not expect is that Lum chooses to tell the story of a Chinese-American family in 1970s Hawai'i as a comedy filled with mugging, game-playing, and general goofing off — with just a small serious streak to hammer home his point.

There are layers of silliness in this play.

It centers on the Wat family and pulls a great deal of word play from Abbott and Costello's "Who's On First?" routine. Wat's on second base, remember?

The older Wat generation is named for prestigious Ivy League universities, with brothers Stanford, Rutger, and Princeton, and Rutger's wife Columbia. The youngsters are named for U.S. presidents Truman and Lincoln.

The plot focuses on a speech Rutger is scheduled to give as president at the next meeting of the Wat/Chu Society. Since he can't speak Chinese, he's memorizing it phonetically and expecting to embarrass himself in front of his elders.

The family is also entered in the society's talent contest and is rehearsing several skits, planning to choose the most unusual one at the last minute. The serious issue arises in the context of impromptu parodies of "The Five Chinese Brothers," the Lawrence Welk and Ed Sullivan shows, and Charlie Chan movies.

The cast also alternates in taking on the personas of David Carradine and Master Po, who enter the action to make a point or to provoke further examination.

Amid the playfulness, there is tension between Rutger and his eldest son Truman. While Rutger admits that his lack of language skills make him a "fake Chinese," he fervently believes that he and his family can be anything they want to be — "the first Chinese ..." (astronaut, baseball player — fill in the blank). Truman, as a typically jaded teen, finds his elders' antics to be foolish and snaps back that he can't become what his father expects of him or substitute his success for his father's failure.

But the serious message sounds only this one note — and only during a small passage at the end of Act 1e. In Act 2, the family returns to goofing around, with full participation from the youngsters.

The Kumu playing space is an difficult one, and Michael Jones' large and squarish set creates poor sight lines that obliterate some of the action. Director John Wat paces the story well, and — when the audience realizes that the play is not to be taken fully seriously as a sensitive slice-of-life drama — the laughs begin to come. As the cast grows more comfortable in playing off audience reaction, the show should loosen up even more.

The elder uncles seem to be cut from the same cloth, with Keith Kashiwada (Rutger), Roddy Kwock (Stanford), and Alvin Char (Princeton) playing minor variations on the laid-back, beer-and- slippers local stereotype. Alissa Joy Lee appears as Columbia and Tristan Hiraishi plays Lincoln.

Perhaps the most interesting acting exercise comes from Brent Yoshikami's playing a character nearly half his real age. Yoshikami captures the boy's awkwardness and insolent, scornful attitude. And, although his added maturity seems to work effectively, one wonders how the play might change if Truman were played by an authentic 15-year-old.

While there are several funny scenes, the play offers little new insight into the ramifications of Asian stereotyping, and the prolonged game playing makes the first act something of a snooze.