JOHN BERGER / JBERGER@STARBULLETIN.COM
Comedian Augie T received the People's Choice Award, sponsored by the Star-Bulletin and MidWeek, at Friday's "Lolo No Ka 'Oi" comedy concert at the Sheraton-Waikiki.
James Grant Benton got a fine send-off Friday night as an overflowing crowd filled the Hawaii Ballroom for "Lolo No Ka 'Oi" ("Crazy the Best") at the Sheraton-Waikiki. Classic local humor
proves popular as everReview by John Berger
jberger@starbulletin.comThe comedy concert -- starring Mel Cabang, Da Bruddahs, Ed Ka'ahea, Lanai and Augie T -- was originally planned simply to bring together most of Hawaii's top comedic talents and to reintroduce Benton and Ka'ahea, the surviving founders of Booga Booga, doing new Booga material.
Benton's sudden death in May resulted in the show being reconstructed as a tribute to him. It turned out to be a good one. Two video clips of vintage Booga Booga performances were the highlights.
The Benton family -- wife Debra, son Kui, daughter-in-law Donovan and granddaughter Nai'a -- had a front-row table for the in-the-round performance (video screens in each corner of the huge ballroom worked surprisingly well in providing a view of the video clips and live close-ups of the comedians at work). Nai'a, a good sport despite the lateness of the hour, was delighted to see "Papa" performing in the vintage clips and in a beautiful memorial segment that producer Dirk Fukushima assembled for the show.
Debra and Donovan both got misty at times, and who can blame them? Most of those in the room seemed on the verge of tears, as well.
The clips showed two classic Booga comedy sketches from the mid-1980s, when Booga consisted of Benton, Ka'ahea and "Dangerous Dave" Lancaster. First up was the one in which hairdresser Shawn Santana (Ka'ahea) gives his cousin (Lancaster) lessons in how to act mahu (homosexual).
The other, perhaps Booga's best sketch from that period, was the classic "poultry sumo wrestling show," with Benton as the Japanese announcer and Ka'ahea and Lancaster manipulating the carcasses of a turkey and a chicken, respectively.
"Poultry sumo wrestling" was the most elaborate and sophisticated piece in the show, and underscored the fact that Booga remains the benchmark by which almost all contemporary local comedy is judged.
Not that the live comedy wasn't a hit. The crowd loved everything, from the snappy one-liners and improvised bits to the toilet humor. Even sketches and skits that took longer than necessary to get to a punch line drew laughs, as well as segments that took good ideas and worked them to death.
Ka'ahea did an excellent job in the lead-off spot. His comments about his genealogy, his Hawaiian heritage as a member of the Pi'ikoi family of Kauai, and some of the people he encounters on the Garden Island were fresh, witty and insightful. One of his best bits in terms of audience response was his re-enactment of how the mahu hula dancers of Kauai prevented Kamehameha from conquering the island.
Ka'ahea returned later to revive "Confession," a classic from the original trio's shows at the Territorial Tavern and their self-titled album. In the original sketch, a guy goes in for confession and discovers, after sharing some intimate details about his life, that the "priest" is actually one of his friends. In the revised version Friday, the confession is made to a priest (Ka'ahea) who hangs out at the same strip club as the confessor (Augie T).
Da Bruddahs opened with Tony J. Silva doing his popular Don Ho impression. James P. Roché eventually joined him playing an agitated "local" of limited intellect -- not necessary "crazy" as in mentally ill, but certainly from the shallow end of the intelligence pool. The most interesting part of the sketch as theater was the way Roché gradually redefined the character, moved outside of stereotypical "locals on crack" material and displayed his skill as an actor.
Mel Cabang was given the honor of performing in the headliner's spot just prior to the finale and proved well worth the wait. Cabang has been doing a great job since returning from his "vacation" in federal prison, and his set Friday was no exception.
Cabang, Augie T and Lanai have all been working so much in recent months that most of their material was familiar -- Cabang's continuing search for the $1 million the IRA claims he made as a gambler, Lanai's explaining what you can tell about women who wear several Hawaiian bracelets, Augie's comments on edible panties, and so on. All proved as popular as ever.
Lanai once again proved himself a fine comic master of ceremonies and never overstayed his welcome.
The finale, in which all six returned for an attempt at improvisational comedy, can charitably be described as noble, but it ran out of energy, ideas and/or time before it jelled as a comic sketch.
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