Connections to the film are strongly pronounced in the play. Both share the same moody soundtrack. Mr. Robinson discloses to Benjamin the one-word clue to future success, "Plastics." And Mrs. Robinson pulls a sexy black stocking over a shapely leg as Benjamin stares like a deer caught in headlights.

"Mrs. Robinson — you are trying to seduce me ... Aren't you?"

But the stage adaptation by Terry Johnson, directed at Manoa Valley Theatre by Betty Burdick, has fewer dark undertones than the original version and expands the final scene into an ending that is equally ambiguous, but more optimistic.

Most importantly, the production stands on its own and comparative trips back to the memory of the original become less frequent as the show finds its own life.

Justin Brossier is delightful as Benjamin, drawing on a host of contemporary television sitcoms to build him more for laughs than for psychological introspection.

Having just turned 21, but with the emotional maturity of a pre-teen, this Benjamin is hedonistically adrift in an older generation's amoral values. He gives in to sex with an older woman because it feels good, but without guilt or much tarnish to an inner core that remains idealistic, but without purpose.

It's the strange, quirky image of Peter Pan in a brothel that makes the play work. Any scene without Benjamin in it fails to play as brightly and most of the characters surrounding him push their stereotypes close to the edge of farce.

Patrice Scott plays Mrs. Robinson as a smoky, jaded predator with a sardonic whisky voice that echoes a Mae West delivery. Boldly unconcerned by an aging body, she's matter-of-fact and determined in her seduction, and her later claim of having been raped by Benjamin plays to a large laugh and carries little threat.

Allen Cole plays a boozy and drugged-out Mr. Robinson, insulated from his wife's bold behavior when under the influence and pathetically self-pitying when sober. Benjamin's parents are played by Karen Valasek as a sparklingly unaware June Cleaver look-alike and James Stanton as a company man without clue or insight.

Melanie Garcia as the Robinson's daughter Elaine initially plays her as a fully formed character and gives Brossier the opportunity to show Benjamin as thoughtlessly cruel. But an unconvincing drinking scene with her mother and a short-lived emotional shock squeeze her back into the confines of a daddy's girl without any personal opinion.

The ambiguity of the final scene gives the audience an option. Benjamin and Elaine play at being grown up, but revert to childish impulses. Clearly, neither is ready to begin an adult path, freeing us to project them into a future of our own choosing.