Kumu Kahua Theatre presents as part of its Dark Night Series a Cruel Theatre production of a play about courage in the modern world Haditha Walmartt Killing Machine

Kumu Kahua Theatre presents as part of its Dark Night Series a Cruel Theatre production of Haditha Walmartt Killing Machine playing Friday and Saturday, January 19 and 20, and again on the following Friday and Saturday, January 26 and 27.  All the shows are at Kumu Kahua Theatre, and start at 11pm, after Kumu Kahua Theatre’s production of Lee Tonouchi’s Living Pidgin.  This show is being presented as part of Kumu Kahua Theatre’s Dark Night Series. Haditha Walmartt Killing Machine is not recommended for the conservative or faint-hearted.  Following Cruel Theatre’s mission statement, this play brings a current political situation to the foreground.

            While not accurately reflecting the Haditha massacre, Haditha Walmartt Killing Machine is set partly in Iraq, partly in America and contrasts two parallel story lines.  One story line involves two soldiers, bored and frustrated with the situation they’re in.  One of the soldiers decides to interrogate an Iraqi family--ostensibly for the maiming of two other soldiers.  The other story line involves two people protesting a shopping store.  They both have nothing left to lose and have entered the store manager’s office with a gun, prepared to take drastic action.  The climax involves both story lines happening simultaneously in the same space with overlapping dialogue, contrasting the War and corporate irresponsibility.  Thematically the play is about the Socratic and Confucian idea of what courage is, “The opposite of courage is seeing the right thing and not doing it.”

            This is the final scripted production Cruel Theatre will stage in Hawai‘i, since founder and Artistic Director Taurie Kinoshita is leaving to Manhattan in May.  The cast includes Cruel Theatre regulars Reb Beau Allen, Nicolas Logue, Frank Katasse, Ryan Sueoka and Marissa Robello and newcomers Hester Kamin and William Murray.

            Kumu Kahua Theatre is located at 46 Merchant street on the corner of Merchant and Bethel.  The box office opens a half an hour before the start of each show. Tickets are $15 general and $10 students.  Call for 536-4441 for reservations and more information.

            Kumu Kahua productions are supported by the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, celebrating more than thirty years of culture and the arts in Hawai‘i (with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts); the Mayor’s Office of Culture and the Arts, Mufi Hannemann, Mayor; the Hawai‘i Community Foundation; and Foundations, Businesses and Patrons.