‘L’Histoire du Soldat’ gets Hawaiian adaptation

Hawaiian-language newspapers were once avidly read in the islands, and it was commonplace for artistic and literary works from Europe to be translated into Hawaiian and published in their pages.

“They endeavored to tell stories from around the world,” said Tammy Haili‘opua Baker, a director of the Hawaiian Theatre Program in the University of Hawaii-Manoa’s Theatre and Dance Department. “So you see Shakespeare’s ‘Tempest’ translated. You see all of the major things in our Western canon today translated into Hawaiian, and retellings of these stories appearing alongside our Hawaiian stories.”

Todd Farley, a graduate student in the UH program, is taking this tradition even further than the written word. With the help of fellow students at UH and musicians from Chamber Music Hawaii, he has created “Mo’olelo o ke Koa,” a fully staged, Hawaii-based version of Igor Stravinsky’s theatrical “L’ Histoire du Soldat” (“A Soldier’s Tale”).

The theatrical work, which encompasses music and dance, with narration and dialogue completely in Hawaiian, premieres Monday at Doris Duke Theatre and will be presented again Jan. 18 at Windward Community College’s Paliku Theatre.

With charming music by Stravinsky and an enchanting story based on the Russian folk tale “The Runaway Soldier and the Devil,” the work tells the story of a soldier back home from war who makes a deal with the devil, trading his violin for wealth. It ends with predictably disastrous results, but not before the soldier experiences alienation from his community and the unfulfilled promise of romance and power.

Despite its Russian roots, presentations of “L’Histoire du Soldat” have frequently crossed cultural and stylistic boundaries. The libretto was originally in French, but was soon translated into English and German; for a tour in the far northern territories of Canada, it was translated into Inuktitut, an Inuit language.

The story has been told in ballet, film and animated versions. Jazz and rock musicians have incorporated some of the work into their own, as has the novelist Kurt Vonnegut. Performers of the work have included celebrated actors Ian McKellen, Gerard Depardieu and Vanessa Redgrave, pop musicians Frank Zappa and Sting and the mime Marcel Marceau.

FARLEY, ORIGINALLY from Hilo, has performed Stravinsky’s work using a conventional European setting, while studying at a mainland seminary.

His original interest in it was from his background as a movement artist — he studied with Marceau in France. “It’s one of those rare classical pieces where movement and dance was used as part of the original production,” he said.

Farley returned to Hawaii intending to focus on Hawaiian-themed theater. He was working on a production of “Boy With Gold Fish,” a symphonic work based on artwork by local painter John Paul Thomas, but when that project was delayed, he turned to Chamber Music Hawaii to team up on Stravinsky’s piece. CMH last performed it in 2003, but with 2018 being the 100th anniversary of the piece, was game to do it again.

“The question we had was how to mount ‘L’Histoire du Soldat’ in Hawaii, when it’s so distant from the culture and what’s taking place here,” Farley said.

Ultimately, Farley decided on doing the work as “a Hawaiian story, based on sort of a nebulous time in the late 1890s to early 1900s, where Hawaii is first starting to feel the pressures of colonialism and the lure of money and investments, and the lure of European and Asian ways.”

In this setting, the soldier Koa embodies a “loss of identity” among native Hawaiians, Farley explained, while the devil represents “temptation of material goods, the temptation of power and influence that colonialism inflicted on Hawaiian culture.”

THE PROJECT includes a recasting of virtually everything in the story, except the music.

Aspects of Japanese theater are incorporated, with some actors dressed in black to carry props onstage.

Hula and Western dance styles have been incorporated; costuming will be Hawaiian.

The text has been subjected to an ongoing process. Farley first translated the French into English, which was then translated into Hawaiian. That was then translated back into English, which will be used in subtitles.

During rehearsal, cast and crew have made further revisions to the libretto “to finesse and elevate” the language, reflecting the formal “ha‘i mo‘olelo” (storyteller’s) language as well as colloquial dialogue, which also existed in the original French version, said Baker, a fluent Hawaiian speaker who is advising Farley on the project.

Viewers will hear authentic Hawaiian language, Baker said. All of the cast, which features Akea Kahikina as Koa the soldier, J. Maki‘ilei Ishihara as Kepalo the devil and C.M. Kaipulaumakaniolono Baker as the narrator, speak Hawaiian fluently and have studied at UH.

Further, the story will be easy to follow even for those in the audience who don’t understand the language, Baker said.

“The brilliance behind the performance is that it’s a physical theater piece, so even though someone doesn’t understand the language, they will see the story unfold in front of their eyes and understand what’s happening,” she said. “I don’t think it will be a challenge at all for people to understand.”

STRAVINSKY’S MUSICAL score consists of a mix of marches, folk tunes and dances. In its day it was known for its unusual instrumentation — with a seven-piece chamber group playing violin, double bass, clarinet, bassoon, cornet (often played on trumpet), trombone and percussion.

“That ensemble is now known as the ‘L ‘Histoire’ ensemble, or ‘The Soldier’s Tale’ ensemble, and everybody knows what that means,” said Chamber Music Hawaii clarinetist Jim Moffitt.

“There’s the dance of the devil and three dance interludes: a tango, a ragtime and a waltz. It’s really a colorful work, even though it’s only seven players.”

Baker admits her first reaction to Farley’s project was, “This is going to be challenging.” Now, she is excited and gratified to see his concept come to fruition.

“Having more stories told in ‘olelo Hawaii, in my opinion, is great, because we need to really think about creating materials and media for the language to flourish and for the language to grow,” Baker said. “It’s about applying the language to everything we do.”