The Hawaii Theatre in 1941. Hawaii Newspaper Agency photo

Hawaii State Archives
The leaky, termite-gnawed roof was replaced with one of steel beams. And Holzman, one of the founders of Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates of New York, is considered one of the leading preservation and theater architects in the country.

The Hawaii had been saved from demolition by a small band of theatrical preservationists that included scholar Lowell Angell, artist-activist Ramsay, doctor-preservationist Norman Goldstein, community board members and businesspeople Claire and Ray Engel, architect Glenn Mason and others, but a guiding hand was needed for the next step.

"Norm Goldstein and Ramsay visited me in New York about 10 years ago and told me of this wonderful theater in Honolulu," Holzman said. "When I visited, I was impressed, even though it was deteriorated. Although it has a lot of seats, it's not big, and it has an unusual shape that makes performances very intimate. You'd never guess it has 1,400 seats! You can see facial expression from anywhere in the theater."

Holzman was contracted with the architectural work, guided by hired theatrical consultant Mary Bishop from Ohio, who developed the renovation agenda, and a newly formed Hawaii Theatre Center organization, headed by Sarah Richards, originally with the State Foundation on Culture and Arts.

The Hawaii Theatre interior, 1996. The rotunda amplifies stage sounds.
Photo by Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin

The theater ceiling features a rotunda, which amplifies the sound from the stage. It's also a safety feature. "In the 18th and 19th centuries, most deaths in theater fires were due to smoke inhalation," said Burton White, Hawaii Theatre technical manager. "The rotunda and the stage loft act like chimneys and draw the smoke upward."

Illustration by Kevin Hand, Star-Bulletin

The original electrical equipment was right out of Frankenstein's hobby room. Hawaii theater techies claim the renovated theater electronics will have some of the best acoustics in Honolulu, "better than the Blaisdell," White said.

An enormous cluster of black PA speakers hovers above the curtain, very Darth Vaderish, the most obvious modern element in the renovation. These can be lowered into a rollaway box and disconnected, and the cables drawn back into the proscenium.

Despite all the ornate detail, the theater interior abounds with hard, reflective surfaces. Even the seats are on hardwood floors; only the soft mohair seat cushions and strip carpeting in the aisles will absorb sound.

The rear of the house, where curtains once screened the SRO crowds, has been replaced by hard stucco in a slight convex curve to radiate sound waves.

The Lionel Walden mural that graced the proscenium soundboard above
the stage was restored, as well as the faux-tile paintings around it.
Photo by Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin

The walls of the theater were textured with a technique called "rag-rolling." It was a quick way for set designers to add texture to a flat surface. An old T-shirt or rag was cut up, and then rolled across the base color with another color. The resulting texture is neither predictable nor overwhelming.

The seats and carpeting are specially made for the theater. The seat patterns, based on a sample of the old wicker chair slipcovers, is split mohair, which requires the cloth to be cut away from itself after the mohair is looped through the cloth. Instead of throwing out the negative pattern, the Hawaii recycles the excess on every other seat, creating a variagated look to the banks of seats. Look at the pattern; it reverses every seat.

The back row of the loges have tall seat backs, which eliminates the need for a railing. At least the seats don't have those annoying drink holders.

There's been a not-so-subtle change in the fire curtain. It replicates the original exactly, except that the new one says HAWAII where the original proudly declared ASBESTOS.

Musicians who use the Hawaii's theater organ will be able to take advantage of some of the best acoustics in Honolulu, technical manager Burton White says.
Photo by Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin

"The organ will be one of the most glorious parts of the Hawaii," said Bob Alder, a Hilo theatrical consultant who's best-known in Honolulu for performing on the Waikiki Theatre No. 3 organ on weekends. "The only problem with the organ is that it'll be locked up in a room downstairs. It used to be on its own elevator. The majority of theater organs are like that. But this one has to be wheeled onto the orchestra lift and plugged in to use it, which makes it difficult to rehearse."

One of the real audio problems with orchestra pits is "flutter," as the sound is caught inside the pit and bounces around before escaping into the audience. The Hawaii people have a low-tech solution - sound baffles that hang on eyehooks beneath the stage.

Dressing rooms have showers, but the "star's" dressing room features a bathtub.

The passageway between the two ends of the stage is lined with blue tile. "This area traditionally gets really dirty because make-up gets wiped off on the wall. It really takes a beating as people rush around," White said.

One change on the main floor is the raised enclosed seating areas in the back corners. "They improve the sight lines, and they're fun to sit in," Holzman said.

There are wheelchair spaces on the bottom floor; the top floor and balcony region are not accessible to them. Richards estimated that an elevator would have cost an additional $1 million.

An infra-red system amplifies sound for the hard-of-hearing.

The theater's lighting system is state-of-the-art and can achieve
many moods. Photo by Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin

The original offices were a step above the original upstairs lobby, and at first glance, it appears the lobby ceiling has been lowered. Not so. The floor was raised to make the lobby area a single space. A bar has also been added to the second-floor lobby as well.

"If you went to a theater a hundred years ago, it was all for the patrons. It was for the elite," Holzman said. "The stage itself was rather rickety and shabby. Today, however, millions are spent on the stage, things that people never see, and the auditoriums themselves have grown drab. Going to the theater should be a memorable experience and there should be a sense of a distinguished place - and this should be true for performers AND audiences.

"I have a theory. We live in a society where technology is so pervasive that it's everywhere. It's easier to talk to people than ever before, while there's less social interaction.

"I think this need for social interaction hasn't gone away, and we NEED places to get together. That's why there's a resurgence of interest in building new performance space and restoring older theaters."