Why Wai?
By Craig T. Kojima,, Star-Bulletin
Actor Nathan Mark shows a taro plant to students, from left, Allan Julian, Max Ida and Kimberly Capogan in the theater lobby following a performance of "Ka Wai Ola."
Young play-goers learn about the life-giving essence of water
By Catherine Kekoa Enomoto
Star-Bulletin"Ka Wai Ola: The Living Water" is sprinkling young minds. Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl's hourlong play depicts a day in the life of a boy during the 1970s highway blockades by Waiahole taro growers. Leeward Community College Theatre stages the play for the public the next two Saturdays.
Meanwhile, the Honolulu Theatre for Youth production about adult issues - the confiscating of land and the diverting of water - plays before 20,000 fourth- to sixth-graders through Feb. 9.
"I love that," Kneubuhl said about writing children's theater. "Over a six-week run it's a lot of kids, so I take my responsibility in writing for them seriously because when I was little I loved children's literature. I did not see that many plays, but the ones I did see I was completely enchanted by. They had a big influence over me when I was little."
Kneubuhl, 48, is a part-Hawaiian playwright/actress/museum educator who was schooled at Punahou and Antioch College in Ohio and holds a master's degree in theater and drama from the University of Hawaii.
"Ka Wai Ola" is her dramatization of modern issues of water, or wai. In ancient Hawaii, wai was so valuable that the Hawaiian word for rich is waiwai. Water/water means lots of wai, means lots of taro or food.
After recent stagings, young minds reflected on the production:
Kimberly Campogan's favorite characters were "the two men who played different parts" - especially when they portrayed mafioso parasites. "That was so funny," the Iliahi Elementary School fourth-grader enthused. What did the 9-year-old learn? "People need water."
Max Ida, also 9, of Kaahumanu School in Makiki, enjoyed when young Keanu pretended to be a thirsty kalo plant languishing on the ground. Ida also liked the character of Uncle Liko, a taro grower. The fourth-grader learned that, "People should try to look at things in a different way."
Despite the play's funny antics, a St. Joseph School sixth-grader got a weighty lesson. "I learned that people shouldn't take anybody's land away," said 11-year-old Allan Julian of Kapolei.
Merry Pham, a fifth-grader at Kalihi Elementary School, came away with fundamental ideas about greed.
"I learned that we have to do things fair, instead of cheating like in 'The Living Water' when some people wanted the water that belonged to Uncle Liko and his sister, and made a fake signature of Uncle Liko's on a contract.
"I learned that when people came from the mainland, they changed the habitats of the animals and plants," she said. "I learned that we should never want more if you have enough food and a shelter. Also, we should share the land and water, so we won't fight a lot."
Pham's classmate, Laili Samori, was eloquent about the value of listening and learning.
"Not only should we learn to understand each other, but to understand the importance of things like having clean drinking water, fresh air to breath, and a place to live," she said. "Without understanding, we would be all in chaos."
The play reinforced Samori's ideas of tradition, cooperation and conservation. "I feel that the ending was very nice. Keanu learned the ways of old Hawaii. His uncle became a closer person in Keanu's life. His Uncle Liko and he himself went with Malama Pono and Gina to protest against the guys taking the water. They all knew about conserving in the end."
"Ka Wai Ola" presents bits of history, humor and humanity to youngsters who weren't even born when taro growers blocked the highway fronting Waiahole Valley to protect their wai 21 years ago.
Said Kneubuhl, "I really wanted people to understand that those people who are taking a stand like that are doing so for a really good reason, for something they really believe in, and for something that is really, really worthwhile. And people who do something aren't just a bunch of cranky activists standing around and complaining about things."
Ka Wai Ola: The Living Water
Show times: 4:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday and Jan. 31
