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Perhaps it's because the show is a comedy, but Kumu Kahua's world premiere production of Lee Cataluna's "Super Secret Squad" makes no allowance for people who take the announced shows times seriously. Some of the best work by the talented five-man ensemble cast is presented as pre-show entertainment to help establish the character types: Comedy ensemble excels
By John Berger
jberger@starbulletin.com>> Boy (Maka) likes Hawaiian music, plays the ukulele, and enjoys making up songs with comically lame lyrics. He's originally from Hana and eats as much as possible whenever possible. Send him across the street to pick up a couple of pizzas and he'll eat 'em both on the way back.
>> Liko (Eddy Gudoy) likes Kalapana. He's a slob and a perennial UH Manoa student.
>> Wanga (Ely Wyatt Na Ka Ula 'Aina Rapoza) is a rocker with shoulder-length hair. He appropriates Boy's ukulele to use a prop while he plays a mean air guitar. Wanga is also the "playa" of the bunch.
>> Duck (Squire F. Coldwell), the resident dorm philosopher, digs Rick Dees' classic "Disco Duck": but his thing is duck, er, duct tape -- the solution to the problems of mankind.
The fifth member of the group, Togo (Daryl Bonilla), is an Air Force ROTC cadet who exhibits loud belligerence.
These five UH students are frustrated by the do-nothing, take-no-responsibility attitude of a bureaucracy in which the decision-makers are always unavailable. For instance, an office clerk tells Togo that he'll have to wait a week to get his request for transcripts processed because the only person with authority to sign it is away on jury duty.
Where: Kumu Kahua Theatre 'Super Secret Squad'
When: 8 p.m. Thursdays to Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays through June 16
Tickets: $15 general; $10 for students; $10 for unemployed on Thursdays
Call: 536-4222The guys are knocking back a few beers when they have an epiphany: All the bureaucratic red tape, idiotic policies, and general inaction in Hawaii is caused by a super-bureaucrat named Wendell and his female assistant, Jocelyn!
And then they hear that the graffiti Wanga carved on a doomed tree was misidentified by bureaucrats as being culturally significant. The tree was spared!
Out of that unintended victory Super Secret Squad is born. The group picks up some explosives (at Togo's insistence), loads up on duct tape, and goes out into the community to battle Wendell, secure in the knowledge that most people -- particularly bureaucrats and their minions -- will defer to anybody with a clipboard and an authoritative manner.
They turn the statue of Duke Kahanamoku to face the ocean, use duct tape to move the vegetation line so that Wanga and one of his girlfriends will have more room on a favorite strip of beach, and protest the replacement of the old UH "Rainbow" logo by painting the new uniforms with heat-activated nail polish that causes the rainbow to appear when the team takes the field in Aloha Stadium. They also vandalize a Wyland whale mural.
THE ENSEMBLE WORK of Bonilla, Coldwell, Gudoy, Maka and Rapoza is excellent, and Act I is a potpourri of comic bits beautifully set up and delivered, but the whole thing runs out of ideas and momentum shortly after intermission, stumbling toward a haphazard and poorly realized conclusion. The light satirical premise is burdened with a subplot about Liko's abused nephew that serves primarily to extend the running time and allow Bonilla to show his acting range as Togo takes an instant dislike to the "cockroach," before befriending him.
The guys' decision to remove the battered boy from the hospital causes "Wendell" to hunt them down, even though Liko's position as the boy's uncle would appear to give them some legal justification.
Their hideout is discovered and they meekly surrender, later pleading guilty to a laundry list of felony and misdemeanor charges with the explanation that they started out with good intentions.
Despite the work-in-progress nature of Act II, Bonilla, Coldwell, Gudoy, Maka and Rapoza give such as tight-knit ensemble performance over all that it is unfortunate that Kumu Kahua still chooses not to participate in the Hawaii State Theatre Council's Po'okela awards.
Director Keith Kashiwada makes imaginative use of three stagehands. Vaikeola Richards does a stand-up job as the Kahanamoku statue, and Jeff Chang and Stu Hirayama shed their black koken gear to portray flunkies and politicos.
Some of the comic references are so topical they will be dated by this time next year, but anyone looking for a few good laughs will find them here. Just plan on arriving 15 minutes before show time.
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