GEORGE F. LEE / GLEE@STARBULLETIN.COM
A masked Ben Moffat, left, played Walter, while Sami Akuna III played transvestite Cocoa Chandelier in the somewhat puzzling "Still on My Back" during a rehearsal last week.
Theater comes in many forms: conventional fully scripted theater, improvisational theater and a genre in which audience participation determines which of several possible pre-planned endings will be played out. Street action backs 10
not-so-easy pieces
Review by John Berger
jberger@starbulletin.comThere's theater with spoken dialogue, theater with sung dialogue and theater with no dialogue; theater in which the playwright delivers a Very Important Message with the subtlety of a brick through a plate glass window, and theater in which the audience is left to make what sense it can out of whatever transpires in the performance area.
"Still on My Back," a new collection of 10 performance pieces created and staged by the Monkey Waterfall theater troupe, fits into the latter category. Masked characters pantomime their way through cryptic scenarios. Most of their experiences appear grim or ominous, although much of the emotional ambience is established by Michael Harada's masks and Kurt Wurmli's imaginative lighting effects.
The cast performs with Pauahi Street visible through the glass wall on the makai side of the gallery, and so traffic, passers-by and curious street people become part of the backdrop.
Masked cast members also perform outside while others are performing inside -- one can be seen standing on a platform across Pauahi Street, apparently delivering a speech, another runs from one end of the block to the other, and so on.
It's a show that could easily be experienced twice -- once as a member of the paying audience inside, and once again by just hanging out on the corner of Pauahi and Nuuanu.
However, those watching and/or participating for free outside presumably don't get the benefit of the music played inside. The extremely eclectic soundtrack includes something identified only as "French circus music" along with more mainstream fare such as "The Way You Look Tonight" and "Is That All There Is?"
There are many challenges to understanding "Still on My Back." Although the playbill lists 10 individual pieces, it is a challenge to figure out where one ends and another begins. Some performers can be identified and acknowledged for their work in individual sketches, others not.
"Still on My Back": Performances at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday; also at 9:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the ARTS at Marks Garage. Tickets $12 pre-sale, $18 at the door. Call 528-0506.
For example: A man in overalls (Ben Moffat) struggles into an enclosed space about the size of shower stall that is already occupied by a transvestite wearing roller skates and what appears to be a miniskirted bridal costume. The area they're now sharing is enclosed in pink. The deejay is playing Tammy Wynette's "Stand by Your Man."
The transvestite (Sami L.A. Akuna III portraying Cocoa Chandelier) suddenly breaks away, skates out the door and onto Pauahi Street and grabs the back end of a passing car, which turns left on Nuuanu and disappears with the "bride" in tow. All righty, then!
A graceful gymnast (Christine Berwin) is repeatedly pushed off balance by two doltish men but always regains her equilibrium. Berwin's performance is a wonder in and of itself.
A woman wearing a bra, a half slip and a mask with Asian features tries on several dresses before choosing an invisible one that she eventually covers with a bathrobe. Who's fooling who here? A male character has what appears to be a misadventure with chewing gum and ends up entangled in it. Or maybe the "gum" represents something else. Who knows?
A small puppet figure animated by someone who may be a cast member or who could be a "koken" ("invisible" stage hand) is ignored by several people. It dies, and is removed in a red wagon.
Sean James John is carted around by larger cast members while he pontificates on subjects such as how to prepare wild game for the dinner table. John's participation in "Still" is a impressive step above and beyond his recent appearance as the abused kid in Kumu Kahua's "Super Secret Squad" and suggests he'll be a talent to watch in years to come.
Unless you're already familiar with the work of director Yuki Shiroma and troupe co-founder Moffat, you're on your own when it comes to making sense of anything that happens -- inside the ARTS or on the street outside -- while "Still on My Back" is in progress.
On the other hand, each segment and almost every individual performance is so rich with detail that there may be no need to read anything deeper into any of this.
Enjoy each piece simply as a carefully crafted performance, and the show overall as a collection of odd bits and pieces, without attempting to decrypt deeper themes -- and wait for something totally unplanned to happen on the street outside.
It could happen.
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