FRIDAY-APRIL 29

>> Play examines Asian-American experience

“Have you ever noticed that most Asian-Americans are slightly brain-damaged from having grown up with Asian parents? It’s like being raised by monkeys. These retarded monkeys.” That’s the provocative opening salvo in Korean-born, Obie Award-winning playwright Young Jean Lee’s 2006 play “Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven.”

Do all people who are not white secretly hate all people who are? That question comes later in Evolve Theatre Company’s Hawaii-premiere production of Lee’s aggressive look at the Asian-American experience in contemporary America, exploring contemporary stereotypes regarding race, ethnicity, gender and Korean culture.

The production is “absurd, crazy, sometimes brutal, and a deeply relevant exploration of stereotypes of racism, religion, gender, and what it means to be Asian-American today,” said director Reiko Ho, in a statement from Evolve.

Eun Ho Lee stars as a young woman known only as her ethnicity — Korean-American. Maila Rondero Kaneaiakala, Denise-Aiko Chinen and Jocelyn Makai‘ilei Ishihara play a trio of Korean women in traditional Korean attire — Korean 1, Korean 2 and Korean 3 — who interact with Korean-American in various ways, and sometimes abuse her. Amy K. Sullivan and Jeff Juett complete the cast as a pair of bickering white people.

The play’s title translates into Korean as “Yongbieocheonga,” which is the title of the first great work of Korean literature written in hangul — the official Korean alphabet created by King Sejong in the mid-15th century.

“She honors the past, but then also tears it to shreds,” Evolve artistic director Troy Apostol said Tuesday. “Lee’s undefinable like that.”

“Dragons” is the second production for Evolve, which launched in February. “It’s a very adventurous, provocative script that we might not see in Hawaii except in some kind of college theater,” Apostol said. “That’s what we hope to offer — stuff that doesn’t get a chance otherwise.”

SATURDAY

>> Strfkr brings its synth-pop sound

Strfkr, a synth-pop band that returns to The Republik on Saturday, is known for its bouncy, danceable music, set to spare, gloomy lyrics on existential topics like death and the end of the world. In other words, the band, which started in Portland but is now based in L.A., keeps it real, with a hint of hope. That resonates with fans.

The title track to 2016 album “Being No One, Going No Where” consists of three lines: “You’re alright where you are/ Being no one / Going nowhere.” Fans loved it, lifting the album to No. 1 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart and No. 9 on the Indie chart. The band first broke into the charts with its third album, 2011’s “Reptilians,” reaching No. 26 on the Heatseekers chart; 2013 album “Miracle Mile” rose to No. 4.

The band was started in 2007 as a solo project by frontman Josh Hodges (vocals, guitar, keyboard), who originally gave it a name that would not be suitable for the general public, poking fun at at music industry characters.

“It doesn’t seem like you’re trying to be successful if you have a name like that,” Hodges said in an interview with bullittmedia.com. But Hodges doesn’t do things according to expectation. Many songs include parts of speeches by Alan Watts, the author of “The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety” and one of the foremost proponents of Buddhism in the West. Other literary references are made to German philosopher Hermann Hesse, whose writings influenced the 1960s counterculture movement.

With the addition of Shawn Glassford (bass, keyboards, drums), Keil Corcoran (drums, keyboards, vocals) and Patrick Morris (guitar, keyboard, vocals), the band now has a textured, contemporary sound.

SATURDAY

>> Skateboarding icons and pro teams hit Waikiki beach

Skateboarders and sports enthusiasts of a certain age remember the day in 1989 when pioneering street skater Mark “Gonz” Gonzales pulled off a frontside ollie (180 degree spin while off the ground) across a 12-foot channel between the curves of a tricky Y-ramp at a National Skateboarding Association contest inside Blaisdell Arena, with hotshots like Tony Hawk and Christian Hosoi in attendance.

After the fact, Thrasher magazine ran a gonzo article about cruising Waikiki and Oahu … and oh yeah, the competition, called “Hell of a Paradise.” Thirty years later, Adidas Skateboarding, Thrasher and Hawaii skate retailers APB Skateshop and 808 Skate are putting on “Hell of a Paradise” times two, with a Y-ramp at Kahanamoku Beach — Diamondhead side of the Hilton Hawaiian Village Lagoon.

Skate legends Gonzales, Hosoi and Steve Caballero are rolling through, along with Hawaii skaters Malakai Montes, Heimana Reynolds and Evan Mock, and members of the Adidas and Krooked skateboarding teams. Be there to watch the pros catch air.

— Elizabeth Kieszkowski, Star-Advertiser

SUNDAY

>> Celebrate Earth Day with food, art and Jack Johnson

Celebrate Earth Day on Sunday with some of Hawaii’s most prominent artists/environmentalists at the Surfjack Hotel & Swim Club.

Singer/songwriter Jack Johnson’s Kokua Hawaii Foundation is sponsoring a screening of “The Smog of the Sea,” a documentary by filmmaker Ian Cheney, with a score partly written by Johnson.

Johnson will appear at the screening to talk story, along with champion bodysurfer/lifeguard/artist Mark Cunningham and Kimi Werner, noted freediver/spearfisher and artist.

Johnson, Werner and Cunningham were part of the filming of “The Smog of the Sea,” which details a trip that marine scientist Marcus Eriksen took through a region in the North Atlantic Ocean known as the Sargasso Sea to study plastics in the world’s oceans, finding a “fog” of tiny microscopic plastic particles. That stood in contrast with the “garbage patch” theory of ocean plastics, in which plastics were thought to remain largely whole, but in floating clumps.

Poolside food stations will offer local, sustainable fare from Mahina & Sun chef Ed Kenney’s Town Tribe, including hand-pounded paiai maker Mana ‘Ai, community-supported fishery Local I‘a and Kunoa Beef, along with beverages from Aloha Brewing Co.