FL MORRIS \ FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM
Taurie Kinoshita's new interactive play about security vs. freedom co-stars Reb Beau Allen, left, and Danel Verdugo. The improvised dialogue will be performed one on one with an audience member. Allen reads a fortune from a stick of bubble gum, one of the props offered, bonding the actor and the audience member.
Security vs.
freedom on stage
John Berger
jberger@starbulletin.comWhat's the optimum balance between personal freedom and group security?
Cruel Theatre presents "The Stranger" Cost of freedom
Where: The Coffee Factory, 1372 S. King St.
When: 7 through 11 p.m. today and tomorrow, and April 12-13 and 18-20. Performances begin approximately every half-hour and take approximately one hour to complete.
Tickets: $12, $10 (discount) and $7 students. Available at the Coffee Factory from 6:45 p.m. on performance nights only.
Call: 523-1004
Most of us would agree that people who enter the country illegally are breaking the law, and that foreigners who are allowed into the United States on student visas should be expected to actually attend school and get their college degrees.
On the other hand, many Americans also agree that President Roosevelt's decision to intern American citizens of Japanese ancestry during World War II simply because of their ancestry was wrong. Or that enacting Israeli-style "racial profiling" programs in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks could pose a threat to our cherished individual freedoms as well.
Taurie Kinoshita hopes that her latest interactive Cruel Theatre production, entitled "The Stranger," will encourage audience members to consider how much personal freedom they're willing to give up themselves in the name of so-called national security.
"It's a free country, and we want it to remain free and we also want to be safe, but how do we remain (both) safe and free? There's cases where people have been questioned and interrogated just for being friends with somebody that was called a terrorist," she said.
The irrepressible actress said that "The Stranger," which is about "profiling" and uses the Albert Camus novel of the same name as a "countertext," is not intended to be an agitprop piece in which the audience is told what is the correct choice to make.
"I'm trying not to be completely didactic. Obviously, I have my own views, but what I want is for the audience to decide for themselves."
The production is Kinoshita's response to the Patriot Act, which, she says, allows the government to incarcerate people for up to seven days without charging them with a recognizable offense. That's not quite the same as the trampling of human rights that is accepted as normal jurisprudence in modern-day totalitarian states such as the People's Republic of China, but still represents a significant bite out of the legal safeguards that American citizens take for granted.
"There's cases of people disappearing all over America, essentially," she said.
"In the past, we've touched on political issues and let the audience decide, and there's no other theater group that's mentioning the war or dealing with it. I feel like we're uniquely suited to (do so). We don't have to wait for a script to be written. We can just respond to the issues (by) having the news stories of the day."
EACH AUDIENCE member will be given a "costume piece" and a name card, and then paired off with a cast member for a one-on-one theatrical experience. Each actor has a different character and scenario that relates in some way to "profiling" and the authorities' power to investigate and interrogate suspects.
FL MORRIS \ FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM
Brent Reynolds, left, and Jeremy Pippin co-star in Taurie Kinoshita's new interactive play about security vs freedom.
Kinoshita says that the pairs will also interact with another actor-audience duo at two points in the show.
The structure allows audience members to change the direction of the story and direct the action, but Kinoshita says that first-timers who are curious about what interactive environmental theater is all about can participate with basic yes-and-no answers. (As in previous Cruel Theatre productions, anyone is free to take the story in almost any direction they want, but nonconsensual touching of any kind is prohibited.)
There's also a final scene that audience members may opt out of if they wish.
Although the Patriot Act and current "profiling" proposals came out of 9/11, Kinoshita is also addressing an older, ongoing issue that likewise involves the balancing of individual rights and group security -- namely, how does one feel about individuals with lengthy criminal records who are allowed out back into the public and then commit additional crimes?
This may or may not be equal to requiring foreigners with student visas to register with some government agency and then actually attend classes, but the underlying issue of individual rights vs. group security is the same.
Kinoshita's cast covers this in the characters' back stories.
"One of the characters has a childhood friend who was killed by a man who had committed the same crime two other times but got off (on technicalities), and another character's lover was beaten to death and the killers confessed, but the confession was thrown out because the police interrogated them three hours too long," she said.
As with her previous interactive projects, Kinoshita is hopeful that Honolulu theater-goers will give it a try.
"I think this particular theater form is ideally suited to the theme. Instead of watching a movie about someone being accused of something they didn't do, you're actually that person being interrogated for something you may or may not have done. Even though you know it's a play, you still get a little of that feeling."
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