The late Lisa Matsumoto wrote and produced her first pidgin fairy tale musical, “Once Upon One Time,” as a theater-class project at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1989.
“Once Upon One Time” was such a hit that it inspired a sequel, “Once Upon One Noddah Time,” and then a second sequel, “Happily Eva Afta,” and several more pidgin musicals and musical comedies after that. Thirty-five years after her first show debuted, Matsumoto’s shows have entertained several generations of island keiki. Manoa Valley Theatre guest director Michael Ng counts himself as one of them.
Ng was a keiki himself when he saw “Once Upon One Noddah Time” on a class field trip. He is now a veteran actor, director and drama teacher, and back at MVT for his third year to direct a Matsumoto musical. This summer’s production, “Happily Eva Afta,” opens at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Kaimuki High School Performing Arts Center.
As with the first two shows in the trilogy, Matsumoto’s plot takes several classic American fairy tales, scrambles them together in the tradition of Mad magazine and Rocky & Bullwinkle’s “Fractured Fairy Tales,” and retells them in the classic stage pidgin all island residents understand. Kids are captivated by the broad comic situations and colorful song-and-dance numbers, but they also learn what can happen if you break a promise — especially a promise made to the hauna (foul-smelling) Hagemogi Fairy. There’s also lots of local-style insult humor, and traditional local stereotypical portrayals of Filipinos, Chinese, Caucasians and mahus (men who dress as women).
Ng’s first encounter with Matsumoto’s work changed his life.
“I went on a field trip to watch ‘Once Upon One Noddah Time,’ the original one, at Kennedy Theatre, and I immediately fell in love with it,” Ng said recently. “I wanted nothing more than just to be in it! I remember auditioning five times (for various Matsumoto productions), and I never got in, but finally with the premiere of ‘The Princess and the Iso Peanut’ in 1998, that was when I got in. So I started as a huge fan, and then I got in as actor.”
Years passed, and Ng is a director and educator who is welcoming a new generation of actors to the canon.
“Two years ago, when we did ‘Once Upon One Time,’ all the menehunes except for one were my students from Kaimuki — and they held their own with the O.G.s (veteran actors),” Ng said. “Every year, I brought in more students, and this year, I’m (teaching) at Punahou now, I brought in even more students from Punahou.”
“Of this year’s Dancing Princesses, one of them is my current student at Punahou, another one was my student when I was at Kaimuki and three of them are the offspring of original Ohia production cast members. And I think that’s another neat thing. The O.G.s are back, and (actors) from the time that I was there (as an actor), and now my students and the offspring of original Ohia production cast members are in it. It’s a nice, full-circle moment, a really good, rewarding feeling.”
‘Happily Eva Afta’
>> Where: Kaimuki High School Performing Arts Center, 2705 Kaimuki Ave.
>> When: Opens 7:30 p.m. Thursday; continues at 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday through July 14 (no show July 4).
>> Tickets: $25-$45; all seats reserved.
>> Info: manoavalleytheatre.com or 808-988-6131
