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Video clips
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‘Aloha Friday’Aloha Friday: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, through Oct. 1. No show Sept. 15. At Kumu Kahua Theatre, 46 Merchant St. Tickets $15, $12 Thursdays, with discounts for students, seniors, unemployed and groups. Call 536-4441, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays
By John Berger Better than last year's "Ulua: The Musical" but not as tight or as original in concept as "Da Mayah." That's Kumu Kahua's season-opening production of Lee Cataluna's "Aloha Friday." Cataluna's fanciful look at life at a badly run public access cable TV monopoly on Kauai has some good moments and a fine cast, but "Da Mayah" remains her best work.
Special to the Star-BulletinPerhaps it's inevitable that Cataluna recycled ideas from it. A "cheesy karaoke" video, "So Ono for You," was one of the comic highlights of "Da Mayah," and many of the funniest moments in "Aloha Friday" come out of video clips of Menehune Cable programs such as "Shooting Goat With The Two Monizes."
Cataluna also is making more use of profanity and crude humor. The F-word is used to get laughs several times. Other bits play off the fact that one of the male characters is named Dick.
"Aloha Friday" also draws on such diverse comic classics as "Putney Swope," "WKRP," the legacy of Booga Booga, and particularly on "Weird Al" Yankovic's broadcast media spoof, "UHF," in which the quirky staff of a small independent television station faces extinction in a corporate take-over. "Aloha Friday" places a similar conflict in Hawaii.
Buck Buyer (Edward J. Dyer) is the abrasive haole malihini guy from Lakeside Communications, the mainland conglomerate that is buying Menehune Cable from the local owner. Buyer promises the staff that no changes will be made. He then starts making changes.
Some of the new corporate policies make sense. The rude and lazy office staff will actually have to do the work they're paid for, show some basic courtesies to customers, and stop stealing toilet paper and office supplies. Overall, however, Buyer epitomizes mainland corporate types who have come here in recent years with preconceived ideas about what would work here.
Dyer plays the two-dimensional, stereotypical haole as hapless villain to good comic effect.
Comic video clips help move the story along with a subplot involving the surveillance cameras that have been clandestinely installed, even in the women's restroom, by the station engineer. A Menehune Cable newscast becomes a brutally funny parody of local television newscasts and local on-air talent in general.
Cataluna, a former local television newscaster, says in the program notes that the story is based on her experiences working at a Kauai cable TV station and for "mainland-run Hawai'i companies." She adds the conventional disclaimer that all this is fiction.
Daryl Bonilla (Clayton) benefits from having one of the best-written roles as he adds another strong performance to his resume, playing the station's cable installer and resident ladies' man. Bonilla does a variation of his "Stanton da Manton" role in "Da Mayah" and makes a major contribution here.
Claire Malia Antenorcruz (Mahela) is consistently charming as the innocent, newly hired marketing intern who becomes Clayton's next sexual objective. Keith K. Kashiwada and Eddy Gudoy are an entertaining team as the goat-hunting Moniz brothers.
The other characters are familiar types. Stu Hirayama is the vacuous Dick, Menehune Cable's vapid general manager. Reiko Ho is the belligerent and frustrated program manager who was once Dick's boss. James Keawe Bright is the nerdy sales guy. Karen Kuioka Hironaga, Ly Atsumi and U'ilani Kapuaakuni do a fine job in being instantly off-putting as the rude and surly customer service representatives who treat the public with contempt and abuse the hapless Mahela every chance they get.
Will this dysfunctional bunch learn to work together and find a way to prevent the sale to Lakeside Communication? Will the clueless mainlander be sent back to where he came from? Need you ask?
Co-directors BullDog and R. Kevin Doyle share credit for the attractive set. 'Olelo's numerous video clips provide most of the most inspired comic moments.
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