So much energy has been expended "translating" mainstream plays into pidgin or otherwise adapting well-known children’s stories for local audiences that Honolulu Theatre for Youth’s production of "Navigator" is welcome for several reasons.

First, because it is an original story that draws on Hawaii’s Polynesian heritage rather than looking elsewhere for material. Second, because it delivers valuable lessons without simplistic moralizing. And third, because director Harry Wong III and his talented cast make playwright Susan Soon He Stanton’s story of "two young women with the same name" entertaining as well as educational.

Nina Buck (Annie) and Danielle Zalopany (Moana) play the women. Buck’s character is a 21st-century teen, one-quarter native Hawaiian, who lives in California where people mangle her long Hawaiian name. She copes by telling everyone her name is Annie. Moana is a Polynesian teenager of a thousand years ago. Her father is a master navigator who has no sons to whom he can pass on his knowledge; she wants him to share it with her.

Annie’s world is turned upside-down when her father, a skilled sailboat racer, informs her that he and her mother are divorcing and she is being sent to Hawaii. Annie ends up somewhere on the Big Island, where there is no cell phone reception and she’s expected to work in her relatives’ taro loi.

Moana discovers her father will be the master navigator on a voyage north to islands so far away that he may not return for several years. She decides to stow away on the canoe so that she can travel with him — and possibly help navigate.

Zalopany is adorable as a dutiful but strong-willed daughter whose dreams are almost her undoing. Buck rings true as a modern American teen more interested in Justin Bieber than her Hawaiian heritage. We feel her pain at being torn away from everything she knows and cringe at her repeated rejection of her Hawaiian heritage.

Moses Goods and Herman Tesoro Jr. ricochet effortlessly between two major roles apiece. Goods plays Moana’s father in the stately formal style often used when portraying Hawaiians in local theater, but busts loose in natural comic style as Annie’s country cousin Koa — the most popular character in terms of audience laughter on opening night.

Tesoro flips adeptly between playing Annie’s no-nonsense grandfather and a nervous young teen known as Kalina ("Fungus") because he "grows in the shade" of his successful older brothers. He befriends Moana after he finds her hiding on the canoe.

Hula choreography by kumu hula Mapuana de Silva and haku mele by her daughter, Kahikina de Silva, give "Navigator" a solid Hawaiian foundation. Sandra Payne (costume design) clothes all the characters in contemporary island attire.

The resolution of both young women’s stories is predictable, but Annie’s journey toward self-discovery is enjoyable theater nonetheless.