GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM Grant Kosh, left, and Dezmond Gilla are night people in the Lizard Loft presentation of "Inferno." The production tells of the love and hate between the Gods of Day and the Gods of Night.

Tale of love and war

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By Gary C.W. Chun
gchun@starbulletin.com

While we live in a culturally polyglot world, with historical, traditional and contemporary themes freely intermingling, there are still a couple of things we wouldn't think of having much in common. For instance, the Kumulipo and "Romeo and Juliet."

The two tales are combined in Hapa Theatre's production of "Inferno," billed as "a tale of love and war amongst the Gods," which starts a two-weekend run today at the ARTS at Marks Garage.

"I'm trying something new," said Troy Apostol, who teamed with fellow theater students to form Hapa Theatre.

Apostol had been toiling out at Leeward Community College, staging self-written, produced and directed productions that challenge any homogeneous notions of what constitutes theater. After all, he's majoring in something called "fusion theater" at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Apostol, who created a theatrical adaptation of the Kumulipo for LCC's "For 'Ewa" project about nine years ago, now intertwines the creation chant and the Shakespearean classic with movements that derive from Japanese butoh, hula and stage combat.

"There are two contrasting families or houses," he said. "But instead of the Capulets, we have night people, Gods of Night. In my adaptation, the night side has more of an Asian sense, with butoh and Buddhist prayer chanting, and their movements sometimes involve martial arts. And instead of the Montagues, there are the day people, Gods of Day. Here, I stick with the original sense of the Kumulipo, with Hawaiian/Polynesian elements, more tribal."

GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM Shawn Felipe appears as Kiva in Hapa Theatre's production of "Inferno" playing at The ARTS at Marks Garage.

Like "Romeo and Juliet," there are two star-crossed lovers from feuding houses who try to survive the chaos such a relationship brings. And while Apostol doesn't want to reveal how his adaptation ends, he does say, "there will be a finality to it."

THIS VENTURE IN multicultural theater, Apostol hopes, will be "an interesting, if not entertaining, combination between Asian and Polynesian."

Besides his own work, Apostol has helped with Kumu Kahua productions and appeared in such UH Kennedy Theatre productions as "Faust," "Much Ado About Nothing" and the China tour of the Beijing Jingju opera "Judge Bao and the Case of Qin Xianglian."

He admits he was once "a street punk, born and raised in the Waipahu and Mililani areas," but became entranced with theater when he was in his teens.

After staging "Inferno," he plans to return to the LCC Theater mainstage and is contemplating a local adaptation of the kabuki "Scarlet Princess of Edo."

"Every work I've created is a progression," he said. "I would still like to see something with a mixture of kabuki, Polynesian, commedia dell'arte and Spanish melodrama, and have it be OK with local audiences."

'Inferno' Lizard Loft presents the Hapa Theatre production Where: The ARTS at Marks Garage, 1159 Nuuanu Ave. When: 8 p.m. Fridays to Sundays through Aug. 11 Admission: $10 Call: 536-8047

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