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The stories are short and simple. The action and acting exaggerated to the extreme. In short, Honolulu Theatre for Youth's production of "Runny Noses, Tiny Tails" is perfect entertainment for kids who are past the age where costumed characters can scare them, but still young enough to get so involved in the action that they talk to the characters and even try to warn the good guys when a villain skulks about "unnoticed" on the stage. Mini-plays please a
younger crowdBy John Berger
jberger@starbulletin.comHTY actors Monica Cho, Nara Springer, Shen Sugai and Herman Tesoro Jr. were an instant hit with the kids at a recent weekday performance, and the kids' response left no doubt that at least three of the four mini-plays were on target. The kids had a great time, and couldn't have cared less that almost all the cultural color of the original folk tales had been stripped away by local playwrights who'd lifted the ideas from other cultures.
So much for the promise that this show would "take audiences on a journey through the folk and fairy tales of Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Alaska." With one exception, the "journey" takes the kids no further than their own neighborhood.
The exception, and the most impressive of the four tales, is "No Tigers in Borneo." Playwright Susan Lee St. John's retelling of an Indonesian folk tale involves three animals who trick a newly arrived tiger into leaving for Sumatra. St. John maintained the cultural integrity of the story by preserving the original jungle milieu and animal characters. Joseph D. Dodd (costume and props designer) adds to the Indo-Malay ambience with assorted costume accouterments and Dayak-style shields.
Except for Springer's portrayal of a slow-speaking animal -- a sloth or pangolin perhaps? -- there isn't much individual characterization until she slips off stage and returns as the tiger. Kids will look no deeper than the colorful costumes, exaggerated acting, and a few simple jokes, but a sugar-coated lesson about loyalty and friendship comes through when the mouse-deer (Tesoro) attempts to protect the pig (Sugai) and the "hedgehog" (Cho).
Tesoro stars as the front end of a cockroach in Daniel A. Kelin II's reworking of a Filipino morality tale into "Da Bugga Like Eat," the story of a tricky roach and a turtle (Springer) that is generous but not stupid.
Dodd creates the six-legged insect by having Cho and Sugai crouch behind Tesoro while covered with a brown cloth that represents the roach's body. The threesome does an excellent job synchronizing their leg movements as the roach. A large bundle of baskets suggests the turtle's shell.
An anthology of four short plays, presented by Honolulu Theatre for Youth 'Runny Noses, Tiny Tails'
Where: McCoy Pavilion, Ala Moana Park
When: 4:30 and 6:30 p.m. Saturdays through May 18
Tickets: $10 for adults; $7.50 for students with high school or college ID; $5 for ages 3 to 12 or 60-plus; and free for ages 2 and younger, although a ticket is required
Call: 839-9885
The story is simple and straightforward. A greedy cockroach pretends to befriend the turtle, eats the turtle's food, and then tells the reptile to get lost. The turtle eventually lures the roach in the water and gives it a scare. Cho, Sugai and Tesoro represent the results of the insect's swimming lesson by stomping in a shallow trough of water, much to the delight of the kids who don't get wet.
Sibling rivalry is addressed in "The Frog Dance," a tale stripped of its original Native American context by Sean T.C. O'Malley. It seems unlikely that the Tlingits of Alaska would have much firsthand experience with frogs, but then Hawaii has no endemic species of frogs or toads either, and the titular animal of O'Malley's borrowed story figures only as being something a kid would not want to be turned into.
The story opens with Tesoro as an obnoxious boy who teases his sister (Springer) and her friend (Cho) as the girls are practicing hula. All three perform hula parodies and Tesoro's faux-hula was the silliest of all. The audience loved him.
The girls retaliate at first by calling the boy a "frog," but the conflict eventually leads to "trowing blows" in the form of basic hula moves. The girls eventually win and get revenge on their little tormentor by painting his face green -- just as mom (Sugai) appears on the scene.
The sister (Springer) later has bad dreams in which she imagines that everybody else is a frog, no, wait, now she's become a frog!
The fourth mini-play, Dance Aoki's "Runny Nose Boy," is a make-over of a Japanese tale about a poor old man who was rewarded for his virtue with the gift of a magical boy. It was during this playlet -- the second to be presented at the weekday performance -- that kids got restless.
Cho and Sugai starred in the story of a girl who discovers that the strange lost boy she's befriended can provide any object she wishes for by sneezing it out his nose. Boy and girl have a great time until her mother comes home, discovers the boy's magic power, and makes him practically sneeze himself to death until the nasty mother gets hungry for mochi.
The members of the HTY Playwrights' Hui seem to know what it takes to get kindergartners and kids of the lower elementary grades to laugh, but their work is less engaging for older kids.
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