By George F. Lee, Star-Bulletin
Jill Rolston is Arlene, an ex-convict who still has to
deal with her ex-pimp, played by Joey Schmidt,
after "getting out."
‘Getting Out’
By John Berger
rings true
Special to the Star-BulletinARLIE was sexually abused by her father and psychologically abused by her mother. She grew up wild and aggressive, was cruel to animals and learned early that many men will pay for sex.
Her street corner education continued through juvenile prison programs. Finally she made the big time - killing a bystander during a chump-change robbery got her 10 years for second degree murder and related felonies.
She's on parole now after doing time and prefers to be called Arlene. The name change reflects her desire to escape her dead-end past life. Yet her prospects of success are bleak. She can't use her prison vocational training because the state doesn't license convicted felons. Her immediate options for legal employment pay minimum wage - if someone will hire a felon. Everything she's good at is illegal.
Welcome to life as a felon on parole! Playwright Marsha Norman tells it grim in "Getting Out." Ben Moffat, director David Kleist and the Windward Community College Players don't flinch from the harsh realities. Every teen-ager should see this drama.
Norman juxtaposes past and present by double-casting her protagonist. The WCCP production stars Christie Lamphier as the violent and self-destructive Arlie. Jill Rolston is older-and-wiser Arlene - determined to make a new life, but stunned by the grinding poverty and menial jobs that await if she stays honest.
Lamphier and Rolston are thoroughly believable. So are Norman's grim snapshots of the life of an abused child-woman on the streets and in prison. "Do unto others before they can do it you" summarizes Arlie's take on life. Anyone who messes with her pays big time. Arlie almost kills a lesbian inmate who goes too far trying make the young woman her new girlfriend.
A kindly adult corrections officer (Bob McGregor) befriends Arlie by "losing" sticks of gum where she can find them. A chaplain eventually triggers her metamorphosis into Arlene.
Her prospects for survival remain about the same. The kindly ACO gives her a ride home; turns out that he wants her as his next girlfriend. Then comes her pimp/ boyfriend (Joey Schmidt) who reminds her that she can make more in two hours as hooker than she'll make in a week of washing dishes in some hash house.
McGregor is subtly threatening long before he makes his move. Schmidt is dead-on as the pimp who is vicious one minute, romantic the next, and baldly honest a moment later. Arlene knows the economic math as well as he does.
Arlene's new upstairs neighbor, Ruby (Leah Gigante), is an ex-con with a job who may be her lifeline to success on parole. Maybe not.
Some things remain ambiguous. Was Arlie sexually abused in prison by another ACO (Todd Ednie)? The chaplain is never seen. Nor are the lesbian inmates.
Director Kleist marshals a fine cast in serving up this grim tale. Michael Harada (set design) and Darren Hochstedler (lighting) expertly define location and mood.
Jacqueline A. Blind, Garison Ellsworth Piatt, Lynn Clore, Reno David and Teri Shimizu portray people Arlie meet while descending through the penal system.
Getting Out
When: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through Nov. 22
The gang's ready for a howling good time
during "A Night at Rosie's."
Honky tonk
By John Berger
keeps Rosie’s jumpin’
Special to the Star-BulletinORIGINALITY is always commendable. "A Night At Rosie's" is Norman Boroughs' second commendable contribution to fresh musical theater in Hawaii. Boroughs wrote the 22 songs. He and his wife, director Joyce Maltby, collaborated in stringing them together as a sequel to the couple's 1993 musical, "Rosie's Place."
The show opens with the arrival of a big-city reporter (Ruthann De La Vega), who would rather be covering opera than doing a human interest piece on a honky tonk. Rosie and her amiable partner (Jim Tharp) sense the woman's bias. The barroom regulars join them in creating some over-the-top characters for the writer's article.
There's a cowboy transvestite with a split personality (Dennis Casar), a female bouncer with hypnotic powers (Jennie C. Ryden), preacher Billy Sinfree (Kalani Brady), and a supposedly irresistible ladies' man known as Spermus Maximus (Al Lynde).
Playwrights Boroughs and Maltby have a great idea, but the "let's fool the city snob" premise isn't maintained. "A Night at Rosie's" follows its predecessor in becoming a cross between "Cheers" and a visit to a karaoke bar where regulars all get a showcase song. As in "Rosie's Place," the four-piece band is several instruments short of credibility and few of the songs or the arrangements are country material.
The brightest and closest-to-country number is Becky Maltby Graue's first showcase, "You Always Find A Way to Make Me Cry." The song could become a legitimate country hit.
Williams' Act I showcase, "Silicone Sally," is one of several fine non-country comedy numbers. Casar brings down the house in Act II with one of the cruder comic numbers.
The "let's put 'em on" premise is dumped for good when Glenn Cannon shows up in red longjohns, a 10-gallon hat and running shoes, claiming to be Satan stopping in for a wager with Billy Sinfree. Cannon plays the role with a bizarre Borscht Belt Yiddish accent like something out of "Fiddler on the Roof," gets his yuks, then sits down at the bar and becomes just one of the folks. Are we supposed to see him as The Devil for real or just another prankster?
The reporter shows no interest in finding out, nor is it clear when - or if - she realizes the locals have been putting her on. Oh well.
Sister Grace Capellas, Michael Kroll, Harold Machigashira, Melinda Maltby, Lloyd G. Mills, George Murray and Aaron "Beaches" Banuilos are among the other performers showcased in this often entertaining cavalcade of talent.
Despite some lapses in continuity "A Night At Rosie's Place" has its memorable moments.
A Night at Rosie's
