Hawaii Theatre re-screens classic to mark 95th anniversary

It’s considered a rite of passage for a local artist to perform at the Hawaii Theatre. Its neoclassical design and decor give it a sense of glamour, tradition and grandeur that puts any performer — and the audience — on a pedestal, a throne of art.

So it’s fitting to celebrate the theater, which has been recognized by the League of Historic American Theatres and has been called “the Pride of the Pacific.”

The Hawaii Theatre holds its 95th-anniversary celebration Wednesday with a screening of “The Three Musketeers,” a silent classic starring Douglas Fairbanks. It was the first movie shown at the theater and features swashbuckling at its best, with Fairbanks performing one of the first great film stunts: a one-armed handspring on top of a downed rival. In the street out front, there will be a classic-car exhibit and other festivities for visitors to enjoy.

It all might not have come to pass if not for the efforts of a grass-roots organization, spurred initially by preservationists and organists who had performed on the theater’s magnificent pipe organ, who helped rally support for the theater. Back then, the original proprietor, Consolidated Theatres, had decided not to renew its lease with owner Bishop Estate in 1984.

“We decided we wanted to make sure the theater got saved and not torn down,” said Lowell Angell, a former administrator at the University of Hawaii and a member of that group. Angell started the organization, known as the Hawaii Theatre Center, with organists Bob Alder and Frank Loney and organ technician Scott Bosch.

They formed a nonprofit that bought the property two years later and kept the theater going until 1989 before closing it down for renovation, which took nearly seven years. Though pictures of the building’s exterior from that era seem to suggest widespread damage, Angell said most of it was cosmetic, with the worst damage caused by part of the proscenium plaster work that fell down due to water damage.

“Some people want to have you believe it was falling apart, but it really wasn’t,” Angell said.

Bishop Estate, now known as Kamehameha Schools, “basically bent over backwards to see our group succeed,” Angell said. “They had offers from developers for more money than they were willing to sell it to us for, but the developers told them they were going to tear it down and put up an office building.”

The Hawaii Theatre was originally opened as both a vaudeville and movie performance venue, seating 1,350, and is the last theater of its generation to survive on Oahu. Angell, 70, a lifelong aficionado of old theater buildings, said there were once about a dozen movie theaters in the downtown area alone. He recalls favorites like the Toyo Theatre and the Princess.

The $32 million renovation of the theater was a massive effort, involving not only construction, but scavenging. Lighting, stage equipment and seating were all acquired from other aging theaters, Angell said.

Aside from the usual upgrades, there are some outstanding differences between the present-day Hawaii Theatre and the theater that was opened in 1922. The vestibule in the front used to be open to the street but was enclosed due to safety concerns. The design of the marquee dates to the late 1930s, whereas in 1922 there was a canopy over the entry. (“There was no such thing as neon in 1922,” Angell said.)

Most people remember the theater from its late-1930s era, after the neon “Hawaii” sign was installed, Angell said.

Today, “except for modern technological improvements in lighting sources, and an electronic reader board instead of changeable letters, it’s basically identical to the original 1930s marquee,” Angell said.

Inside the theater, features like the Lionel Walden paintings above and beside the stage mostly needed a good cleaning, Angell said. Smoking was allowed in the theater for decades, and age had taken its toll on the paintings, but otherwise the art was well preserved.

“Nothing was really destroyed over the years or damaged,” Angell said, adding that the paintings needed “mostly cleaning, regilding.”

Other original decorations include two lanterns on either side of the orchestra level. “Those are original to the theater, so for those to have survived 95 years is pretty remarkable,” Angell said. “There’s all kinds of things that could have been done, but fortunately people I guess were a little bit better behaved back then.”

For years after the theater’s reopening, one of the most popular events was an annual holiday show hosted by Jim Nabors. The theater now has its own theater program for children and does its own programming, as well as renting itself to outside performers.

While most large touring shows are staged at the Blaisdell Center to maximize profitably, a stage show at the Hawaii Theatre is in many ways more akin to the intimacy of a Broadway production, Angell said. “The old Broadway theaters, they’re not much larger than the Hawaii; in fact, many of them are smaller than the Hawaii,” he said.

Whether one goes to the Hawaii Theatre to see a stage show or a movie — singalongs have been popular in recent years — it’s impressive to have such a grand performance theater in Honolulu.

“It was basically the dream of the founders of Consolidated to open a really fancy theater, and that was the Hawaii Theatre,” Angell said.