University of Hawaii-Manoa student Bronzen Hahn and community theater veteran Jo Pruden own many of the best moments in “;Appalachia Hawai'i,”; a tale about a military family with Appalachian roots that is transferred to Hawaii.

Pruden has excelled for years at playing tart-tongued women, and the role of Grandma Stanley could have been written with her in mind.

Hahn's performance as her awkward teen grandson, Jimmy Stanley, reaffirms his versatility, including an impressive talent for comedy.

The basic premise is simple. The dysfunctional family, Caucasians one generation removed from the coal mines of Appalachia, moves to Hawaii. There's Colonel Stanley (Christopher McGahan), a bully and martinet.

His wife is a sourpuss who engages in fruitless turf battles with Grandma Stanley. Their daughter, Grace, 16, meets Kawika De Souza, a “;local boy”; a year older. She gets pregnant and plans on an abortion. He's a good Mormon and insists on marrying her.

His family wins her family over, and wedding bells ring.

If only it was that simple! It would take a production the length of Wagner's “;Ring Cycle”; to tie all the dangling ends together.

Did Kawika's sister have an earlier abortion? Did unplanned pregnancies cause the marriages of the previous generations? Is Jimmy gay? Did Kawika's grandmother have reservations about her daughter's decision to marry his father?

While these and other issues are thrown into the mix, the central story plays out.

McGahan gives such a chilling performance that Colonel Stanley's quick agreement about marriage seems out of character. Lindsay Timmington McGahan is much better cast as the sourpuss wife than she was as a porn star in “;Etta James”; in December.

What makes this story a cut above other locally written plays is that playwright Terri Large Madden and director Brett T. Botbyl treat the newcomers as more than just clueless buffoons or the butt of the locals' put-downs. Botbyl also keeps the locals' “;stage pidgin”; dialogue within reasonable limits.