A small but mighty cast is presenting a show in Hilo for three weeks about how the historic life of Prince Kuhio shaped Hawaii in many ways.
“Ke Kaua O Ka Lahui: The Life of Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalaniana‘ole Pi‘ikoi” will be shown by the Hilo Community Players at the Keawe Theater through May 18, with 7:30 p.m. shows on the Friday and Saturday of each week and 2:30 p.m. Sunday performances.
The show was written by award-winning playwright Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl and is being directed by Jackie Pualani Johnson, who shaped performing arts in Hilo during her 38 years as a professor of drama and chair of the Performing Arts Department at UH Hilo.
“I hope people might be inspired by the life of Kuhio and how we as human beings have the option in this life to help one another. I feel that his great love and sacrifice for his lahui is something we should all remember,” said Kneubuhl, who has known Johnson for decades through drama productions in Hilo. “I think, as Native Hawaiians, this production means a lot to both of us.”
Johnson started with the Hilo Community Players at 15 years old, and she introduced Shakespeare in the Park productions with the Community Players in 1978. Kneubuhl’s work includes her Mai Poina (Never Forget) series of living history plays, which have toured the islands to tell the history of the Hawaiian Kingdom’s overthrow in 1893 and its controversial annexation five years later in rich, historically-precise detail.
“I am still irritated — this is putting it mildly — that I did not learn this history as I was growing up,” Kneubuhl said of her motivation behind the Mai Poina series. “I hope people learn something about our history.”
The first three plays of the series — “The Overthrow,” “The Trial of a Queen,” and “The Annexation Debate” — have been performed regularly through the Hawai‘i Pono‘i Coalition for over ten years. The play about Prince Kuhio — which was developed with HPC in 2022 and has been performed on Oahu, Maui, Kauai, and Molokai — is the fourth play in Kneubuhl’s Mai Poina series.
“The production was directed to be flexible and able to be performed in a variety of settings,” Kneubuhl said, adding that since Johnson was as eager to direct the play as she was to have it performed on Big Island, they worked together to offer it in Hilo. “I very much wanted people on our island to see it, too.”
The play’s inherent flexibility has allowed it to be performed in every setting from outdoor parks to theaters, Johnson said. In the Keawe Theater — a relatively new performance space in the upstairs main room of the historic A.O.F. Building at 280 Keawe Street — the play’s set is both simple and expansive.
The stage depicting lush Hawaii, an ali‘i palace with feather kahili, and the U.S. Congress where Kuhio served as a nonvoting Republican delegate — all set before an upside down Hawai‘i state flag — seamlessly travels the world and fifty years of time. Kuhio’s life story is told from his Waikiki upbringing to the dismantling of the Hawaiian Kingdom, then onward through his work like establishing important harbors and national parks, instituting the state-county system, and passing the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act in 1921, all in defense of the people and homeland he cherished.
“He didn’t want to be considered royalty. He called himself a leader of the people and a servant to the people. He gave his life, literally, to getting Hawaiians on Crown Lands,” Johnson said, calling it “uncanny” that the topic of Hawaiian Homes was discussed on the news the same night as the play’s first dress rehearsal. “Twenty-nine thousand people remain on the homestead list. Our island has 15,000 people who are waiting for their homes, and it causes deep kaumaha (sadness) that it’s been over 100 years and people are still waiting.”
Actor Ray Campainha takes on the title role of Prince Kuhio in the play, transitioning between dialogue and serving as a first-person narrator to guide the audience through the tale. Campainha is the only member of the eight-person cast who remains as one character throughout the play, while the others morph between presenting as queens, revolutionaries, congressmen, and everyday citizens throughout the developing story.
“I have to play many parts in my day job anyway,” said actress Evette Ewalani Tampos, who is a school counselor at Pahoa Elementary by day and plays roles in the show varying from a 1902 news reporter to Queen Lili‘uokalani, a role she’s taken on before under Johnson’s direction.
“Every time, I find a new nuance to her character in things I didn’t really know. I came across a picture of Lili‘uokalani and Kapi‘olani traveling to the Queen’s Jubilee in England for Queen Victoria, so I (learned that) there was more train trips besides with Kuhio,” Tampos said, smiling at actress Amy Erece, who plays Queen Kapi‘olani, among other roles in the play. “We were train buddies. It helps to develop the character.”
The rest of the cast includes longtime Hilo Community Players Robert Duerr, Ray Ryan, and Malia MJ Ke Aloha Ford, as well as actors Jon Sakurai-Horita and Ethan Longboy, who make their HCP debuts in this show.
Tickets can be purchased for $20 online at www.hiloplayers.org, with keiki and kupuna tickets available for $15. Tickets, if still available, are $5 more at the door on performance nights. Doors open a half-hour before showtime.
The Keawe Theater entrance requires ascending a tall staircase, so those requiring accommodations are asked to to contact hilocommunityplayers@gmail.com five days in advance of their desired showtime for arrangements.
Email Kyveli Diener at kdiener@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
