PICS: Society of Seven ‘homecoming’ an instant hit

Photos by Bruce Asato / basato@staradvertiser.com

The Society of Seven reopened their show at the Outrigger Waikiki with excellent music and comedic antics, but also turned patriotic with a medley of patriotic songs, ending with Tony Ruivivar, Alika Santos, Arshiel Calatrava, Bert Sagum and Hoku Low at the front of the stage singing “God Bless the USA” as Roy Venturina, Wayne Wakai and Vincent Mendoza played in the background.

Review by John Berger
jberger@staradvertiser.com

Rule Number One in show business is that if something works, you don’t mess with it.

Tony Ruivivar developed a winning formula for the Society Of Seven some 40 years ago, and the opening of the SOS’s “homecoming” show last night proved that Ruiviviar’s formula is still a winner. Old-time nightlifers who remember the SOS from their heyday in the 1970s and ‘80s can count on embracing this latest production by Waikiki’s once-and-forever super show group. Anyone seeing the SOS for the first time is certain to leave a fan.

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DHT big winner once again at Po’okela Awards

John Berger / jberger@staradvertiser.com

“Miso” cast members Elissa Dulce (winner, Featured Female in Play), left, Charlotte Dias, Allan Okubo (winner, Leading Male in a Play), Eric Nemoto (winner, Featured Male in a Play) and Jessica Y.L. Ka ‘uhane (winner, Leading Female in a Play) pose for a picture during the 2010 Po’okela Awards.

By John Berger
jberger@staradvertiser.com

Perennial front-runner Diamond Head Theatre emerged as the biggest winner once again when the Hawaii State Theatre Council announced the recipients of the 2010 Po’okela Awards last night at the Koolau Golf Club.

DHT received 27 awards spread across 15 of the 22 categories, with its spring production of “Guys and Dolls” accounting for eight of them. Manoa Valley Theatre and The Actors Group tied for second place in the awards tally with 17 each. Productions by All The World’s A Stage, Army Community Theatre, Hawaii Pacific University, the Hawaii Shakespeare Festival, ’Ohi’a Productions and the Paliku Theatre also received awards.

Three other community theater groups — Honolulu Theatre for Youth, Kumu Kahua and the University of Hawaii at Manoa theater program — choose not to participate in the Po’okela Awards. Read more

Review: ‘Nine’ helps raise funds for Army Commmunity Theatre

Courtesy Army Community Theatre

The cast of “Nine.”

Review by John Berger
jberger@staradvertiser.com

The show was staged in a theater rather than in some neighbor’s old barn the way the Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland did it in the those classic Hollywood movies, but with Larry Paxton starring as Guido Contino, and some of Hawaii’s most talented women as Paxton’s co-stars, Brett Harwood’s weekend production of “Nine” lived up to expectations as a precedent-setting two-night fund-raiser for cash-strapped Army Community Theatre.

Paxton, who starred in Diamond Head Theatre’s fully-staged version of “Nine” in 1998, was superb once again playing Guido in an “in concert” version in which he his co-stars wore formal attire and performed on a bare multi-level stage with members of musical director Melina Lillios’ orchestra on each side of them. Several scenes were enhanced with choreographed movement, but no sets or costumes were necessary to do justice to the story, the lyrics and the score.

Guido, a brilliant and unconventional film director, is dreading his 40th birthday. His last three films have been “flops,” and although he is supposed to start shooting a new film he has no idea what the story is going to be. He hasn’t even started writing the script and one of the investors is threatening legal action.

Then, on the brink of ruin, inspiration strikes — he’ll improve a movie about Casanova with a script based on his own life experiences! Read more

Review: Mead is masterful in ‘Measure for Measure’

Courtesy Hawaii Shakespeare Festival

Review by John Berger
jberger@staradvertiser.com

Stephen Mead’s brilliant performance in the title role of the Hawaii Shakespeare Festival’s production of “Shylock” in 2008 illuminated every facet of the character of one of Shakespeare’s most complicated villains. He returns this year again playing the villain – although a less complicated and more comical one — with the pivotal role of Angelo in director Linda Johnson’s HSF production of “Measure for Measure.” Mead’s scenes are some of the best in the show.

Duke Vincentio leaves Angelo to rule Vienna while he attends to matters of state outside the city. A law on the books makes “fornication” a capital offense and although Duke Vincentio has not enforced it Angelo decides that public morality will be best served by executing of a young nobleman named Claudio for that offense. Claudio’s guilt is obvious — his fiancée, Juliet, is pregnant and soon to give birth.

Claudio’s friend, Lucio, takes a message from death row to the condemned man’s sister, Isabella, a novice nun, begging her to go Angelo and plead for mercy.
Isabella, young and innocent, does so. Angelo, who appears to have been a pillar of moral rectitude until that moment, falls deeply in lust with her. After much hemming and hawing, false starts and innuendos, Angelo eventually informs Isabella that he will spare her brother’s life in exchange for her virginity – in other word, committing the same act with Isabella that Claudio is to die for.

The difference, of course, is that Claudio wants to marry Juliet. All Angelo wants is Isabella’s virginity. Read more

PICS: Wonder Girls wow fans at Pipeline Cafe

Photos by FL Morris / fmorris@staradvertiser.com

Review by John Berger
jberger@staradvertiser.com

“Do you see Asian singers on American television? I don’t!”

JYP — aka Park Jin-young, founder and CEO of JYP Entertainment, and the producer/manager of the Wonder Girls — posed that question about an hour in the Wonder Girls’ Hawaii debut concert at Pipeline Cafe last Friday.

The Girls — Sun, Yenny, Sohee, Yubin and Lim — had come out on stage without introduction at 8 p.m. on the dot and entertained the wall-to-wall crowd for a solid 40 minutes while a luminous sea of iPhones and other electronic devices recorded their every twist, turn and seductive gyration.

Then came a momentary lull as the quintet left the stage.

JYP, pictured at right, appeared seconds later in an immaculate white suit and the crowd went wild again.

It was JYP’s concert debut in Hawaii as well, and he made the most of it as he sang several of his signature hits, played one selection on keyboards and displayed his crowd-pleasing skills as a dancer on several others. He told the crowd that he was happy to be in Hawaii not as a CEO, or as the manager and producer of the Wonder Girls, but as a singer and dancer who was there to entertain them. Read more

PICS: Willie K at the Waikiki Aquarium

Photos by FL Morris / fmorris@staradvertiser.com

Review by John Berger
jberger@staradvertiser.com

Willie K lived up to his reputation for unpredictability last night as he entertained a sold-out crowd with almost two hours of music in the third “Ke Kani O Ke Kai” summer concert at the Waikiki Aquarium.

He put a fresh spin on one familiar tune by playing “Katchi Katchi Music Makawao” on ukulele instead of guitar, and closed the second half of the show with a Bollywood-style engagement of “Waterfall” that he introduced by saying, “sometimes I get lost in my Punjabi mode.” It was a fascinating musical trip. Read more

Review: ‘Sound of Music’

Review by John Berger
jberger@staradvertiser.com

Rodgers & Hammerstein, Howard Lindsey and Russel Crouse didn’t write “The Sound of Music” as a political statement but 50 years after the show first opened on Broadway the issues it addresses are surprisingly topical.

Georg Ludwig von Trapp had served with honor in the Austro-Hungarian navy in World War I but although an ally of Germany in that war he despised the Nazis who’d come to power in the ‘30s and opposed their plans to unite two German-speaking nations into a “Greater Germany,” Friends urged him to keep his personal reservations to himself, but after the two countries were peacefully united von Trapp was recalled to service – this time in the German navy, and subject to the orders of a government whose policies he disagreed with.

Who could have anticipated in 1959 that many Americans would find themselves in similar situations in the years to come?

So much for politics! It’s the story of the unlikely romance between Captain von Trapp and a young would-be nun, and the glorious Rodgers & Hammerstein songs, which have made the show a Broadway classic. Diamond Head Theatre’s season-closing production of the ever-popular Broadway blockbuster brings the political issues to the table while simultaneously doing justice to the stirring love story and some of the popular songs in 20th century musical theater – “My Favorite Things,” “Do-Re-Mi” and “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” among them. Read more

Review: ‘The Boys in Autumn’

Photo by Bruce Asato / basato@staradvertiser.com

Joe Moore plays Huckleberry Finn and Pat Sajak plays Tom Sawyer in “The Boys in Autumn,” a two character production at the Hawaii Theatre this weekend.

Review by John Berger
jberger@staradvertiser.com

Pat Sajak gets a round of applause when he drives out on stage. Joe Moore gives a convincing career-best performance as a man wracked by guilt. The Hawaii Theatre Center’s production of “The Boys In Autumn” plays this weekend with two major gimmicks in effect but turns out to be surprisingly substantial theater.

The first gimmick, of course is the casting. Moore is the long-time ratings king of Hawaii television news anchors. Sajak is the emcee of one of the most successful game shows in television history. Both men are donating their time and covering their own expenses and production costs for this HTC fundraiser. Read more

Theater Review: ‘Black Box Black Blocks 2′

“Black Box Black Blocks 2″

» Where: Ernst Lab Theatre, University of Hawaii at Manoa
» When: 8 p.m. today through Saturday; also 2 p.m. Sunday
» Cost: $7 general admission; $5 for students and seniors (tickets go on sale at the door one hour before each performance; cash only)
» Info: blackboxblackblocks.wordpress.com

Review by John Berger
jberger@staradvertiser.com

Cannibals, “Dungeons & Dragons” and the aftermath of dysfunctional relationships are key themes this weekend in “Black Box Black Blocks 2” at the UH-Manoa Earle Ernst Lab Theatre.

Conceived and produced last year by Elisa Diehl as a showcase for new playwrights, directors and choreographers, the program is again worth seeing as a preview of the up and coming. Most of the playwrights succeed as effective story tellers. Two of the choreographed pieces are also interesting.

Chris Slagle stars in “Voicemail,” playwright Rosina Favors’ thoroughly modern tale of a man who deals with loneliness by leaving messages on his girlfriend’s cell phone. The playwright’s surprise twist in the story comes early but the strength of Slagle’s performance carries the action past that point and holds our interest through each subsequent scene.

A talented quintet – Jillian Blakkan-Strauss, Erin Chung, Chris McGahan and Dan D. Randerson – performs tag team style in “It’s All Relative,” playwright Siobhan Ni Dhonacha’s dissection of dysfunctional relationships. Each of the four takes a turn playing a heart-broken victim, each takes a turn as a person whose actions ended a relationship. Cast members go out into the audience seeking validation and one storms out of the theater in rage.

The fact that the cast was still “on book” (referring to the script for their lines) at Wednesday’s preview performance didn’t lessen the power of the performance. Credit director Lindsay Timmington McGahan (wife of cast member McGahan) with expert work in presenting the playwright’s final message on relationships. Read more

Stage Review: ‘Topdog/Underdog’

Review by John Berger
jberger@starbulletin.com

The Actors Group production of “Topdog/Underdog” has magnificent acting, but unlike plays that may showcase actors’ talent at the expense of storytelling, pacing or continuity, the TAG show is a winner on all counts.

Credit Harry Wong III with directing of the year’s best contemporary dramas.

Nothing drags. Nothing happens that seems inconsistent with what we know of the characters. Nothing artificial or illogical is thrust into the story to end our interest in what will happen next.

Moses Goods III and the actor currently known as Q — two of the top talents currently performing on the local stage — are perfectly matched in this gripping, Pulitzer Prize-winning tale of two highly competitive brothers trying to work their way out of poverty and street crime. One is trying to go straight, the other wants his brother to help him hone his criminal skills.

Read the complete review in the print edition of TGIF in Friday’s Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

‘Topdog/Underdog’  
>> Where: The Actors Group Theatre, 1116 Smith St.
>> When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays through June 27. Additional show at 7:30 p.m. June 23; no performance on June 25
>> Cost: $20 general admission; $15 seniors; $12 for students, military and groups of 10 or more. $10 admission for all on Thursdays.
>> Info: 722-6941, www.taghawaii.net

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