Kathleen Stuart, Konishiki
STUDENT theater groups are alive and very well, thank you, in Hawaii these days. In the past week I took in Joyce Maltby's very entertaining salute to William Shakespeare on his 433rd birthday, "A Midsummer Night's Dream," at HPU's Windward Campus. Then it was to UH and the Kennedy Theatre production of "The Grapes of Wrath," beautifully directed by Glenn Cannon, and as Star-Bulletin critic John Berger noted it "touches the heart." There were a number of excellent performances and a remarkable folk-singing narrator, James B. McCarthy, who tied together all aspects of the well known John Steinbeck story of a family driving to California in search of jobs and a life ... Next generation
has stage promiseSURPRISINGLY enough, the most enjoyable show of them all was the well-worn "South Pacific," somehow made fresh by director Ron Bright and an unbelievably talented cast headlined by 15-year-old sophomore Kathleen Stuart as Ensign Nellie Forbush and 19-year-old Jordan Shanhan, who showed tremendous maturity and vocal range as the older French planter, Emile de Becque. The rest of the cast was uniformly excellent, particularly the lovely Liat created by Michon Suyama, who showed off great dance ability also. In fact, the choreography (by Mathew Marcelo Pacleb) was as inventive and performed by the dancing chorus as well as any amateur production I've seen in Hawaii. Remarkable, coming from a high school, even one with a reputation as great as Castle's. The night I saw the show, the audience included such luminaries as Gov. Ben Cayetano, Charles Toguchi and Bishop Estate trustee Oswald Stendor ...
WHILE Stuart had impressed me by her effortless stage presence and movement as one of the trio of singers in "Little Shop of Horrors," learning she was a high school sophomore set me back. The question: Could she carry off a demanding leading role, too? Answer: An emphatic yes! Stuart plans to finish her accelerated schooling next year and set off for New York at 16 to hone her craft. It wouldn't surprise me if she one day makes it bigger than anyone from here since Bette Midler ...
TAKING the stage to dance with Gloria Estefan in Tokyo was Hawaii's own Konishiki, and while his sumo career has waned somewhat, he seems to have a natural talent for showbiz. He and fellow Hawaii sumo star Musashimaru were guests on a Hawaiian music radio show in Tokyo recently, and who happened to be in town and at the station but Kamasami Kong, the ex-isle D.J. who now has a radio show in Osaka. Kong put a local spin on the program, getting Konishiki to own up to some pre-fame pranks in Honolulu, such as getting stopped by a cop for "mooning" tourists on Kalakaua Avenue in the pre-dawn hours. Konishiki blithely answered one cheeky question from a listener who wanted to know how often he slept with his tiny wife. He didn't miss a beat: "Every night, brah, every night!" Kong's assessment: "Howard Stern, look out." ... BIG hit!
WITH promoter Tom Moffatt back on the air (at 107.9 FM) will this start a trend? His former K-POI running mate Ron Jacobs was in town last week, but merely to appear at a reunion of people like him and Carl Lindquist, who used to participate in drag racing at Kahuku Airstrip. Two buses took participants to the airstrip and the drivers were talked into an impromptu race between buses. Jacobs has no plans to return to isle airwaves, though he's still involved with radio in L.A. ...
A DUO called the Kinkis is part of a Japanese TV show, "LoveLove-Aishiteru," which filmed in Hawaii last week. They're not X-rated, but hail from the Kinki region of Japan. In one segment filmed here, the Hyatt Regency people got into cahoots with the producers of the program and let a camera crew into the room of Tomoe Shinohara, a guest star on the show, so they could catch her reaction on film when she was awakened at 3:30 a.m. by a "talking bush," a confederate in disguise. The poor dear screamed bloody murder ... Kinki doings
Contact Dave by e-mail: donnelly@kestrok.com.