Touring Play THE LEGEND OF KO'OLAU to Stop in Sacramento

The new national touring play The Legend Of Ko'olau opens in Sacramento for one afternoon only on April 10 at 3 p.m. at the Sacramento City College Theatre of Performing Arts.

Selected for creation grant funding by the National Performance Network of New Orleans, the one-man play about a legendary Hawaiian cowboy has toured the Hawaiian Islands including the Hawaii Theatre in Honolulu and been to the David Henry Hwang in Los Angeles and La Pena Cultural Center in Berkeley, California.

It was invited by the Hawaii state officials for a special performance at the Kalaupapa National Park on Molokai before former Hansen's Disease patients and their families.

The story of the Hawaiian cowboy Kaluaiko'olau has been written about by the late novelist Jack London and by poet W.S. Merwin. For the first time, it features this historic figure telling the story in a theatrical drama that has received high praise from critics.

Berkeley poet/radio commentator Jack Foley wrote: "Last night Adelle and I saw a remarkable one-man play, The Legend of Ko'olau. Written by Gary T. Kubota, it's the story of the "Hawaiian outlaw cowboy," Kaluaiko'olau and his resistance to political and moral forces he gradually comes to understand are eroding not only himself but the entire Hawaiian people.

A compassionate man who has worked with lepers, Kaluaiko'olau becomes a leper himself. The play documents his struggle to maintain his sense of dignity and his armed refusal to be treated in the inhumane way that lepers were treated. With his wife and young son he becomes an emblem of resistance-a "legend." But to put it that way is leave out the many humanizing touches playwright Kubota has given the man-his multiple conflicting allegiances, his anger, his humor, his guilt about a murder he felt compelled to commit, his conflicts about religion, his deep love for his wife and son."

Moronai Kanekoa who has appeared on TV shows "Scorpion" and "Castle" is the actor, and the director is Monte Scott Perez, who has toured nationally with the late actor Jack Klugman who starred in TV roles as Quincy and The Odd Couple.

More information and tickets are available at koolausac.wordpress.com or legendofkoolau.com.

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