Crusoe's Island and Pu'uhonua

Show Summary (top)

Directed by
Elizabeth Klobe
Katherine Engelhard

Written by
Mike Robinson
Maria Glanz

Running Dates:
3/26/99 - 4/10/99

Description:
Open Circle premieres two bracing one-acts that explore perceptions of race and the nature of love. Crusoe uses Dafoe's familiar story to examine the "civilized savage"; Pu'uhonua explores love and savagery outside a 1940s Japanese internment camp.

Official Show Web Site:
Click here for the web site for this show.

Cast & Crew (top)

Cast Members
Mike Robinson: Crusoes Island Author
Maria Glanz: Pu-uhonua Writer & Performer

Crew Members
Kyle Iddings: Pu-uhonua Lighting Designer
Steven Villegas: Pu-uhonua Set Design
Alissa Alexandra: Pu-uhonua Stage Manager
Jason Webley: Sound Design

Director Notes: (top)

PU-UHONUA (place of refuge) Production History:
People ask, "Where did you get the idea for this play?" I haven't yet figured out a short or simple answer.

I used to share my life with a Japanese American man, and after hearing about the internment camps I started wondering "What if we'd met 50 years ago..." About the same time, we were visiting family and friends in Hawaii, and I discuvered and fell in love with the meaning of "pu'uhonua." A place of refuge, the most sacred of heiaus. You could commit the worst crime, break the most heinous taboo - and if you ran fast enough and made it into this place before you were caught, you'd be safe. Cleansed. And all of a sudden, I saw a man in a desert building a circle of lava rocks....

Then there's World War II. My mom was a teenager and my dad a very young POW in Germany. I started listening to their stories about how people in my home town spoke German until the War, how they ate (with relish) this thing called blood pudding, and how my mom fell in love with Hawaii via the radio (Arthur Godfrey broadcasting from under the banyan tree at the Moana Hotel - after the war, true, but close enough for me.)

And a play started to bake. When I met a man who'd been interned in Minidoka as a child and he told me of that landscape filled with lava rocks, I knew there was no turning back. I strung together the first skeleton of this piece in Decmber 1996, called this woman Elizabeth I didn't even know very well and asked her if she woulld direct it for Freehold's Studio Series. She said yes. And then there was really no turning back.
- Maria Glanz, 1999

Reviews (top)

The Seattle Times (Thursday, April 01, 1999 )

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