ARTS AT MARKS GARAGE Mark Pinkosh has more "Haole Boy" tales to tell.

Caucasian male

Would he do it again? Mark Pinkosh, who left Hawaii for Hollywood 10 years ago says yes -- and no.

"I think if I was 30 years old in Hawaii, trying to figure out what to do, I think probably I would stay and work out a way to use it as my base for touring, but it's really hard to say because it's a whole different world now," Pinkosh explained late Monday afternoon, fielding a call to his Hollywood home.

"Haole Boy 2 -- Haole-er than Thou!" Presented by Meader Arts and featuring Mark Pinkosh Where: The ARTS at Marks Garage, 1159 Nuunau Avenue When: 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday, through February 12. Note: The Feb. 4 show will start at 9 p.m. because of other "First Friday" events. All other Friday shows will begin at 8 p.m. Tickets: $20 ($16 for current PBS Hawaii members) Call: 550-8457 or connect to www.artsatmarks.com

Pinkosh and director/playwright Godfrey Hamilton moved his Starving Artists Theatre Company to California in order to be closer to almost all of the markets for their work. Pinkosh says the move paid off.

"I miss Hawaii a lot, but it's been a good move because our market is Europe and Canada and a lot of the Eastern seaboard colleges. It makes the commute easier. Also, financially it's easier.

"The world was much more difficult to maneuver around when I moved 10 years ago. I was working in Canada a lot, and at the time I had to jump through all these hoops ... to get a permit to work there. Now that NAFTA has been passed, I can just cross the border, show my driver's license, and work anywhere. Little things like that -- and cell phones and e-mail --have enabled things to be so much easier. Today, it would be really easy to come in from Hawaii and work in Canada. It wasn't like that 10 years ago.

"Life is good, it's crazy, it's the same-old-same-old, but we're happy. We're still doing tours to Europe a lot and collage tours, and bits on TV and film stuff -- just going on."

The big news for local audiences is that Pinkosh comes home next week to open his new one-man show, "Haole Boy 2 -- Haole-er Than Thou!," at the ARTS At Marks Garage on Thursday.

The original "Haole Boy" premiered in 1991, shortly after a Caucasian student at the University of Hawaii-Manoa went public with complaints of racism, and a high-profile faculty member allegedly responded by suggesting that he go back to where he came from. While Pinkosh's one-man show turned out to have nothing do to with that campus controversy, it was still great theater and a fine showcase for Pinkosh.

HE PLAYED Christian Wnuk, who relates his experiences growing up on an American military base in Germany, and his bizarre encounters with various relatives during a road trip, as the family drives across the mainland before setting out for his father's new station in Hawaii. Wnuk then explores an assortment of issues here locally, involving race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation.

There was speculation back in '91 that Christian Wnuk was simply Pinkosh under another name. Pinkosh says it wasn't that simple then -- and it isn't this time around either.

"When I did 'Haole Boy' 10 years ago, I used that character as kind of a safeguard, like a firewall, so I wouldn't have to talk about myself so much. This one is the same sort of story (but) more personal. It's more about Mark Pinkosh's experiences, while it's still kind of a fictionalized account of that stuff."

Pinkosh will revisit a few of the events and characters in "Haole Boy," but take the story forward to incorporate his experiences as an actor in Hawaii, on the mainland, and in Europe. He'll also address the experience of being a Caucasian in Europe after growing up Caucasian in Hawaii, and look at the way Europeans relate to Americans.

"It's a bigger net thrown a little wider. Same story, same idea. It's about 70/30, but I won't tell you which way."

In the meantime, Pinkosh's film career is going well, he says, even though he has been cut out of nine films, five since he came home in 2001 for the American premiere of "Don't Forget Me."

If all goes well, Pinkosh will be seen here playing a Russian scientist "with a bolo head" in an episode of "Alias" later this spring, and also as a school teacher in a new Nickelodeon series.

But he still does some work as a extra, one of those many nameless folk you see in crowd scenes.

"I still do some background work, too, to keep my (union) insurance up. If you do so many days a year, you can keep your insurance. I have friends who would rather wait tables than do background work, but I'm not a snob about it. I'd much rather stay around than not work."