The Honolulu Theatre for Youth opens its new season in a new home and with the re-staging of a successful production from last year. For the first time in its 51 years, HTY will have a permanent base at Tenney Theater at Saint Andrew's Cathedral, having leased that venue for the next five seasons.

The Hawai'i run is a warm-up before the show moves to the Seattle Children's Theatre for a guest slot in October and November.

The opening production is Y York's "Nothing Is The Same," developed from oral histories of Hawai'i residents who were children living in Wahiawa when Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor and Schofield Barracks on Dec. 7, 1941.

Again directed by Mark Lutwak, with half of the original cast returning, the current production is sharper and more focused than in its original outing last October.

The plot traces the impact of the air attack on four local children whose lives were irrevocably changed by the bombing and the racial suspicions that followed.

The pivotal role is that of Mits, a Japanese-American youngster deeply imbued with the samurai ethic. The samurai way is more than just hero imitation for Mits. He seems truly able to focus his energy in a startlingly adult way, including an out-of-body experience in which he inhabits the body of a Japanese pilot and sees himself and his friends from the air.

Not surprisingly, odd Mits has always been something of a loner, but he does protect his friends from bullies and enjoys a good game of shooting marbles. "Samurai take up one marble, da marble come one extension of his arm. Da Samurai stay da marble."

But when Hawai'i's Japanese-Americans come under suspicion after the attack, Mits is shunned by his former playmates George and Bobi, and exploited by Daniel, the local bully.

It's a difficult chore for an adult actor to play a child with such precociously adult qualities. Troy Apostol is new to the role of Mits, and reaches the necessary childlike quality when Mits decides to dissociate from all things Japanese, including his samurai focus. The resulting hopeless vulnerability makes the character click and helps Apostol fully transform into a believable youngster.

Jacquie Yang as Bobi is also new to the cast, turning in a sleeper performance as an overly serious tomboy that results in some of the best laugh lines late in the play.

Bulldog and Reb Allen reprise their roles as the waffling George and the domineering Daniel.

Playwright York has captured both the characters' pidgin and their childlike penchant for exaggeration and gruesome images. "Da ships wen sink. Dey wen huli, belly side to da sky. Had men still alive in dea."

The final result is a unique view of history and a story in which friendship triumphs over violence and bigotry. It is also a tight package that should travel successfully to Seattle audiences.