Star-Bulletin
The Royal Hawaiian was Oahu's second theater.

---

150 years ago,
the theater came
to Honolulu

Finally, isle performers
had a stage of their own

By Burl Burlingame
Star-Bulletin

Earlier this week, the Hawaii Theatre celebrated its 75th birthday. As it turns out, this was actually the half-way point for theaters in Hawaii. The first stage venue in the islands opened 150 years ago today.

It was called The Thespian, and it was a leased building on the corner of King and Maunakea streets. Prior to the Thespian, theatrical extravaganzas had been held aboard ships or in parlors or in parks. Amateur actor Charles W. Vincent's home-grown stock company renovated the humble building made of adobe.

Vincent's day job was as a carpenter, so there was plenty of sweat equity put into the rebuilding. They added a stage, box seats and a pit, with front boxes for unattended "ladies" and Hawaiian royalty.

The first attraction was a double bill -- "The Adopted Child" and "Fortune's Frolic." Box seats cost $1, big money for 1847. But that included a pillow. Pit seating was 50 cents, and you had to bring your own pillow.

The Hawaiian royalty boxes often hosted Kamehameha III and assorted royal hangers-on, including politicos John Young and Robert Wyllie.

"The Thespian was the first effort for a permanent place for performances, and was a sign that Hawaii was quickly becoming a modern nation," said Lowell Angell, president of the Theatre Historical Society of America and administrator of the Historic Preservation program at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

The first public performance of Western-style theater didn't take place in Hawaii until 1809 or 1810, said Angell, and it was in the waterfront Campbell residence. The set burned down during a spirited reenactment of a naval engagement. The early missionaries didn't much care for theater and stage entertainments were discouraged.

But the Thespian became such a success that frightfully keen Honolulu investors -- including a fellow named William Paty -- ponied up enough money to build a new theater from the ground up.

The Royal Hawaiian Theatre, the first "purpose-built" theater in Hawaii, opened in November 1848 at Hotel and Alakea Streets and was an immediate success.

The "Tap Dogs" of the day was the 1859 run of magician John Henry Anderson, the "Wizard of the North," whose "black art, white magic, necromancy, demonology, witchcraft" plus a "galvanic hand buzzer" created such a stir that Kamehameha IV dubbed Anderson "Ka Akamai Keokeo Kane" -- "The Clever White Man."

Around 1880, the Royal Hawaiian was past its prime and audiences moved to the new Opera House on King Street that played such a role in Liliu'okalani's dethroning. By 1881, the Royal Hawaiian was leveled.

The first production, however, in the Royal Hawaiian in 1848, was Oliver Goldsmith's classic comedy "She Stoops to Conquer." Does the concept of historic preservation include restaging plays? Next year is some lucky theater group's 150th opportunity.