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Synopsis: "Dead of Night," playwright Ed Sakamoto says, is about four friends who are assigned to go to a non-union company to persuade the owner to let workers be unionized. "I don't want people to think this is a union-issue play," he says. "It's about friends." Playwright revisits
days of his lifeBy Cynthia Oi
Star-BulletinThoughts of what might have been wend through Ed Sakamoto's head.
Maybe it's because he's 60 years old. Maybe it is his unstructured life. Maybe it's the nagging addiction for Hawaii that afflicts many island-born people.
It doesn't matter why. The fact remains that the "ifs" of life have grabbed hold of him lately.
Sakamoto, whose "Dead of Night" will be the 15th play of his produced by Kumu Kahua Theatre, has been retired from his "day job" for five years. After 20 years as a copy editor for the Los Angeles Times, he was among 700 employees laid off in the newspaper's cost cutting.
The change was jolting.
"It was a well-paying job and I liked the camaraderie of the staff," Sakamoto said.
But in truth the work had gotten boring, he said, and because he had invested well -- "the market was good to me" -- money wasn't a problem.
"It turned out to be the best thing to happen to me," he said.
Now his time is his own to do what he wants. Except that he's not quite sure what that is.
"I'm very lazy," he said as he sat in the cafe of his Waikiki hotel. "I just waste my time. I don't do much -- hangout with friends and try to write plays, of course."
Sakamoto speaks with an honesty that comes from a man who knows and accepts who he is.
Dead of Night
On stage: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, Nov. 2 through Dec. 2; 2 p.m. Sundays Nov. 5 through Dec. 3
There was little unusual about his childhood, he said. He grew up in a middle-class Japanese family and graduated from Iolani, where he did some acting.
At the University of Hawaii, from which he earned a degree in English -- he dubbed it "useless" -- he took playwrighting. The course required him to write two one-act plays, but by semester's end, he still wasn't done. "I told my teacher I couldn't do it. But he said I had to or I would have an incomplete. So he held my incomplete until the summer. When I finished, he gave me an 'A'. "
"One of those plays won the student division in the university playwrighting contest. That was my first experience with writing like that. I didn't write another play for 10 years."
Newswriting diverted Sakamoto from creative writing. He went to the University of Southern California to study journalism, but teachers there told him he didn't need a degree and "to just go get a journalism job."
Returning to Hawaii, he worked as a reporter for the Honolulu Advertiser. He also tried out for a civil service job and was offered work in the islands. But his year at USC had whetted his appetite for the outside, so he took jobs at newspapers in California, eventually making his way to the Times.Weekends and off-work hours found him writing plays, most of them set in Hawaii. These have been staged at various island venues since 1973; others have been produced in Los Angeles.
His successes are modest, Sakamoto said. "I'm not in the same class as Arthur Miller," but many audiences have seen his work so he counts that as good.
He never married, but is the proud uncle of several nieces and nephews, one of whom is fishing celebrity Mike Sakamoto, "my claim to fame in Hawaii," he said.
He is glad he moved to the mainland and for his experiences in the theater world, for the friends he has.
He has a few regrets. "Nothing that torments me, but it's my nature. Little things. Little regrets -- nothing worth mentioning to the newspaper people," he laughed.
Yet there's this itch.
"What if I stayed in Hawaii to do that civil service job? If I did, I probably would have earned a good living ... retire after 30 years. I think I would have had a good life. I would have made friends, long-time friends."
When he visits the islands, he looks around at passers-by.
"Who are these people -- could they have been my friends? Because I moved to the mainland, I never met all these people.
"Isn't that something to think about: Who are these people who could have been my good friends in Hawaii?
"If I stayed in Hawaii, I might have been happier. Or maybe I might have been frustrated.
"The point is I'll never know."
After a pause, he said, "I wish my life was like 'Twilight Zone.' If I was in the 'Twilight Zone,' I could live both lives. That would be perfect."
He acknowledged that this "if-ing" may be a part of getting older.
"I would have never thought about this in my 30s," he said, but he's not sure that's the only reason. It remains a puzzlement, something to consider further.
In the meantime, he is also considering moving back to Hawaii.
"L.A.'s OK. That's not my problem. But I really want to come back to Honolulu to live. My friends on the mainland tell me, "Don't go back to Hawaii, you'll be bored, nothing to do.' But I still think it will be nice."
Holding him back are the hassles of actually moving.
"I'm a procrastinator. I'm a pack rat. I would have to get health insurance, sell my house in L.A. -- so much trouble."
Still, as playwrights do, he visualizes what it would be like.
"I'd do my walking, my exercise, walk around the huge, beautiful Kapiolani Park. It's very peaceful there -- the children playing around, feeding the birds. I would walk around the park, buy a bento lunch and eat it there. I would sit down on the bench by the bandstand with my yellow legal tablet and write.
"This is what I would do."
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