Friday, December 21, 2001
Music and acting brighten up simple Christmas tale
"Santa Claus Lives in Hawaii" provides good family fare with a story kids can easily relate to
By John BergerWith locations left largely to the imagination, the cast and director/choreographer Jim Hutchison carry the show.
Freedman tells a contemporary Christmas tale in terms kids can easily relate to. Young Kimo doesn't believe in Santa Claus. Why should he? There have been no Christmas presents at his home for several years now, and his father is marooned in Wyoming -- something to do with an insurance company's computer error.
Eight-year-old Marcus Shinbo, who has a strong voice for his age, brings an instantly engaging presence to the role of Kimo. Shinbo/Kimo seems totally overwhelmed in his first scene with the hulking villains, as any undersized 8-year-old might be. He seems to grow in stature when he confounds them later by refusing to
steal. Plum roles go to Matt Junmar (Moki) and Elitei Tatafu Jr. (Loki), both excellent kiddie-show villains. They're much larger than any of the other "kids" in the cast, but are never so threatening that they scare younger kids in the audience.
Junmar and Tatafu also have two of the most interesting songs. The pair have a great time camping it up in "Come Be One of Us," the villains' comic description of their criminal lifestyle. Their second big number, "Ev'rything's Free," the jail-cell lament that follows the villains' inevitable comeuppance, is a comic highlight, and veteran director Hutchison ensures that both numbers are staged for maximum effect.
Local theater veteran Christopher Bates has the other notable role as Melf, Santa's hard-working elf-in-chief. Bates was cast after the play's souvenir album was recorded, and thus the elf's gender change from Melvina to Melvin. (None of the people showcased on the disc appear as performers in the show). Bates gives a spirited performance as the primary song-and-dance man despite being encumbered with gigantic elf shoes.
Bates, Vegas and Ralph Brandt (Policeman) are the only cast members who have costumes other than basic street wear, but costume designer Kathe James sets Shinbo off from the other kids by dressing him in gray while the others are all in bright colors.
Hutchison's choreography and smooth pacing add to the entertainment value and ensures that younger kids won't get restless. The whole show runs barely 70 minutes, including a 15-minute intermission.
Roslyn Catracchia wrote the melodies for Freedman's lyrics. The music for the show is relatively thin but serviceable for a work-in-progress and adequate as kiddie musical fare. That said, the big gospel-style song, "Do The Ten Commandments," needs more power and raise-the-roof impact than synth tracks and basic choreography can provide. Giving a few of the ensemble members tambourines to play would add much-needed soul and boost the octane of this pivotal number.
Anyone with young grade-schoolers to entertain this weekend will find "Santa Claus Lives in Hawaii" a fine family outing. Kids of all faiths will learn that the spirit of Christmas equates to the Aloha Spirit, and that Santa, although as fallible as any other adult, loves even the kids who don't believe in him. Parents will also appreciate a clean, G-rated show free of the commercial tie-ins and come-ons often connected with kid-targeted shopping center fare.
Holiday drama is child’s play
An isle writer makes a dream come true with a Christmas play
Never a down moment: Art Freedman passed his time scribbling lyrics on napkins as he waited for his interview to begin.
By John Berger
The family-oriented musical focuses on the spirit of Christmas as 9-year-old boy Kimo must believe in Santa Claus in order to get a gift for his mom and avoid an encounter with two villainous teens.
Freedman got the show on by being "too stupid to know that I shouldn't do it or couldn't do it -- that there was no market for it, that I didn't have the talent for it (and) that nobody would want it."
"If I'd asked for professional advice they'd have told me I'm 68 years old, out in the middle of nowhere on a small island, and I decide I'm going to write a Broadway musical play -- about children? Now I've got an opening night coming up. My ego should be exploding at this point, but it's not. I'm honored, I'm amazed at what I've done at this age, but when I look back I think it isn't so remarkable that I should have done this," he said.
Vanita Rae Smith and Broadway veteran Jim Hutchison are helping bring Freedman's show to the ACT stage. Freedman enlisted Roslyn Catracchia, best-known for her long-time creative partnership with playwright Lisa Matsumoto, to write the melodies for his compositions after several other composers turned him down -- too busy, not interested, no market for this kind of thing, no thanks.
Freedman says he and Catracchia hit it off immediately. "I think we both approached this as something that was meant to be done, and we've done it."
A limited edition album, "Santa Claus Lives in Hawaii (The Musical)," has already been released as a production souvenir.
Freedman is now looking for composer/collaborators to work with him on two more musicals -- one country, one a "graduation day story" that he hopes will appeal to high school theater groups.
"I've already written the lyrics. Now I want to get those lyrics encased in music." Would-be collaborators can take heart from the fact that Freedman isn't limiting his search to composers with experience writing in those genres. However, he wants to work with one composer per project. That means he' looking for someone with the depth necessary to write all the music for a show. He's pretty much a full-time writer. Whenever he's early for an appointment, or the other person is late, he'll work on a phrase or a rhyme or an idea for song lyrics. Sometimes he'll work on a specific idea. Sometimes he just plays with words or sounds.
Ideas come from everywhere. "A man is the sum of his years, and I certainly am that. Every experience that I've had eventually finds itself into my lyrics."
Indefatigable optimism has been the catalyst for many of Freedman's experiences and the key to his successes. Who but an optimist would get a degree from the University of Miami and then spend almost 10 years working his way around the world three times, running oil from the Persian Gulf into the Gulf of Eilat back when Egyptian guns still threatened the approaches, and talking his way into a job as an interpreter even though he spoke no language but English?
Freedman wrote for an English-language Scandinavian newspaper, got a job in a Danish travel agency through events that would seem far-fetched even as a plot device in a Broadway musical, and parlayed his experience in Europe into an American travel industry career. That brought him to Hawaii and a few side ventures in Australia and New Zealand. He settled permanently in Hawaii 32 years ago.
So much for some of the experiences that inspire his lyrics. Freedman's musical perspectives are almost broad. Some of his earliest memories of growing up in Detroit are watching performers at his father's nightclubs and attending local theater. The family vacationed often in New York and took in Broadway productions. Freedman kept up his interest in music and theater, visiting Broadway on his own during his college years.
For the keiki
He became interested in writing for children while raising his hanai daughter, Malie Fernandez. One rhyme or piece of poetry followed another and he soon had compiled a collection of short pieces inspired by his daughter and the family dog. He happened to mention the book to his barber and discovered that she too was working on a children's book and had recorded a cassette to go with it. She gave Freedman a copy and his daughter loved it.
Freedman took a closer look at the book and the cassette and thought the concept had commercial potential. He suggested a partnership. The Lani Goose books were the result.
Freedman met composer Ron Tish of "Just Hang Loose" fame through Lani Goose. The two men became writing partners, entered a local song contest, and took runner-up honors with a song titled "Santa Claus Lives in Hawaii." Freedman noticed that most song contest participants were amateurs trying get noticed.
Few people who already making a living as songwriters were willing to write for free just to enter a project. Tish, for one, didn't have time for spec work.
Their song was included on a local Christmas anthology, and that got Freedman thinking about writing more Christmas songs. It wasn't long until he had written enough lyrics to fill an album or mount a show.
He originally envisioned the project as an animated film. A friend who was sharing some ideas about character development suggested that the story might also work as a stage play. That's how it developed, and as the project rolled along Freedman found himself fielding a question he'd never anticipated: why was a "good Jewish boy" celebrating Christmas by writing a Christmas musical?
"I didn't analyze this until people started asking me why I'm so involved with Christmas which is celebrating the birth of Jesus. First of all, Jesus was not a Christian. Jesus was a Jew. If he were back today he would probably be regarded as either a Conservative or a Reform rabbi because he did not conform to the norm or the Orthodox Jews who were in control of the temple and so forth."
"Secondly, the religion encompasses the very things that I was brought up to believe in. I wrote a song, 'Do The 10 Commandments And Live The Golden Rule' -- the 10 Commandments come from Moses, and the story is that when Rabbi Hillel was asked if he could define how a Jew should live, and say it while standing on one foot, and he said, while standing on one foot, 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.'
"Jesus used the same expression, and I think that particular expression is found in a number of religions. These are things that we can all identify with. The spirit of Christmas is universal."