HONOLULU THEATRE FOR YOUTH
BullDog, left, Monica K. Cho Coldwell and Moses Goods III star in Honolulu Theatre for Youth's "New Kid," playing at Leeward Community College Theatre.
Immigrant faces
pain in ‘New Kid’
The twin traumas of culture shock and bullying are addressed again with clarity in Honolulu Theatre for Youth's production of "The New Kid," which the group presented for the first time in 1999. Casting changes make it even more effective as educational theater this time.
Playwright Dennis Foon cleverly gives local kids a taste of what immigrants go through by having his immigrants speak fluent English while the Americans communicate in a garbled rapid-fire patois. The audience thus shares the immigrants' confusion and lack of comprehension followed by gradual understanding of the meaning of some of the strange sounds.
"The New Kid": Presented by Honolulu Theatre for Youth at Leeward Community College Theatre, 1:30 and 4:30 p.m. Saturdays through Feb. 14. Tickets are $12 general and $6 for people over 60 or under 19. Call 839-9885.
BullDog stars as Nick, a Homeland native, who comes to Hawaii with his family. The clothing worn by Nick and his mother (Cynthia See) suggests Homeland is either rural Indonesia, or somewhere in South East Asia. Nick's experiences show that it is a nation where the people have no exposure to the English language or American culture. It is an extreme example that's easily understood.
Herman Tesoro Jr. gave an engaging performance as Nick in 1999 and BullDog is equally good in 2004. We quickly empathize with Nick's bewilderment at being thrust into a school room with kids he can't communicate with and without any prior warning that he's expected to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance and while singing "America the Beautiful."
Clothes that were apparently stylish in Homeland mark him as a oddball in Hawaii. The local kids make fun of his initial efforts to communicate. He has no idea how to use baseball, football or basketball equipment, and the local kids say that the food he brings to school smells bad and gives him bad breath.
A girl named Mencha (Monica K. Cho Coldwell) gradually befriends Nick and becomes his mentor, but another, Mog (Moses Goods III), bullies him unmercifully and taunts him with a word that Nick learns is a crude local epithet for Homelanders.
Coldwell plays Mencha with much the same comic zest Lisa Ann M. Omoto brought to the 1999 production, but director Harry Wong III adds a fresh dynamic to the story by casting a male as Mog. The role requires an extensive repertoire of comic skills in several early scenes, and Goods once again comes through in that department. Goods can also be convincing as a villain, and since he by far the biggest of the three "kids" makes a very believable and threatening bully. Also, although Mog comes from a local family that nurses a long-time prejudice against Homelanders, Wong's choice of casting raises the possibility that Mog also resents Nick because a local girl has befriended him.
SEVERAL SCENES make it clear that prejudice goes both ways, and that immigrants can also be guilty of narrow insular attitudes. Nick's mother insists that he speak only Homelander at home and doesn't want him socializing with local kids. She's stand-offish to the point of rudeness when Nick first brings Mencha home to visit, although Mom changes her mind after learning that the local girl has become Nick's protector on the playground. Nick also is guilty of cross-cultural game-playing when he tricks Mencha into "thanking" his mother for a delicious snack by teaching her an inappropriate phrase in Homelander.
Director Wong maintains a crisp pacing appropriate for an elementary school audience. Coldwell and Goods chatter their way through Foon's invented language with convincing authority, and kids will pride themselves on the speed at which they figure out, for example, that "rumpabutt" is the local word for "chair."
"The New Kid" was originally staged in Canada, so HTY artistic director Mark Lutwak, director of the 1999 show, also localized some of Foon's invented language in ways that prime audience response. Kids at a Wednesday school performance laughed uproariously when words that sounded like "kaka" and "poopy" were heard amid the gibberish. (Among the more mature comic bits in Lutwak's revised script is Nick's discovery that the word for manapua is "steamigarfield.")
Goods and BullDog are also quite good at letting their facial expressions indicate Nick's and Mog's feelings. A scene in which Mencha dares Mog to taste Nick's foul-smelling lunch is particularly well played.
"The New Kid" contains a lot of clowning and physical comedy that doesn't advance the story but adds to the show's entertainment value, and which makes "The New Kid" more than an earnest Politically Correct piece on the importance of Being Nice to Immigrants And Other People Who Aren't Like You.
The school shows end with an audience participation segment with See as the moderator. The first series of questions establishes that some of us were once "new kids" ourselves, and that everybody has ancestors who were "new kids" in Hawaii at some time. From there, the floor is open to kids' comments on the ways that Nick handled his problems. The session ends with a question for the kids to take back to the classrooms: What might have caused Mog to become a bully?
As in 1999, HTY's "The New Kid" is perfect entertainment for families with elementary-age children. If quality ensured ticket sales, the remaining public performances would be sellouts!
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