TGIFr!day

Week of February 23, 2018 | Vol. 6, No. 8

Check da Scene

Grinds & Da Kines For Your Weekend

‘LOVERS, WIVES AND TENNIS PLAYERS’ Opens tonight, runs through March 4

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2 | TGIFR!DAY | February 23, 2018

MAKE ‘EM LAUGH Bill Buley / The Garden Island

Anne Sueko Coyle, left, plays Mary Jergens, Erin Gaines plays Florence and Larry Richardson plays Bob Jergens during rehearsal for “Lovers, Wives and Tennis Players.” ON COVER: The cast of “Lovers, Wives and Tennis Players,” from left, Jeff Demma, Erin Gaines, Anne Sueko Coyle, Joseph Quentin, Bob Jergens, T.J. Hamiton and Gabby Davidson.

Richard Peck comedy awaits reaction of live audience BILL BULEY TGIFR!DAY

R

ichard Peck smiles as he tells a story of watching two teens in Italy running full speed, keeping a soccer ball in the air the whole time. The ball bounced off their chests, heads, knees, whatever it took to keep it from falling to the ground.

In ways, that sums up what he’s after with his comedy, “Lovers, Wives and Tennis Players” through Kauai Community Players.

“How long can you keep that ball in the air?” he asked. “That’s what a farce is about. Mistaken identities, confusion, the whole play can fall apart if anybody asks the right questions.”

Nobody does.

Still, Peck won’t know if this play he wrote and directed works until a live audience is in the theater —

••• “LOVERS, WIVES AND TENNIS PLAYERS” Runs Friday through March 11 at the Puhi Theatrical Warehouse.

Shows are Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 4 p.m. For tickets, go to kauaicommunityplayers.org

and there will be when it opens at 7 tonight at the Puhi Theatrical Warehouse.

In drama, Peck notes, no matter what happens, friends will tell an actor they were wonderful in their role.

Not so in comedy.

“The audience laughs or it doesn’t laugh,” Peck said. “There’s no lying. You know right now if it’s working or not. You don’t know until the audience is there.”

Lovers, Wives and Tennis Players, described as having “razor-sharp dialogue and split second timing that will have you laughing as the absurdity builds,” has already sold

out this weekend’s shows, so it’s off to a good start.

The seven-member cast features T.J. Hamilton as Alan Carroll, Gabby Davidson as Betty Carroll, Anne Sueko Coyle as Mary Jergens, Larry Richardson as Bob Jergens, Erin Gaines as Florence, Jeff Demma as Lyle and Joseph Quentin as Tank.

Confusion reigns when they all eventually come together at a cottage, and each misunderstands what’s going. Really, only the audience knows.

“The characters are talking about different things and don’t know it,” Peck said.

The set, notes Peck, has five

Bill Buley / The Garden Island

T.J. Hamilton plays Alan Carroll and Gabby Davidson plays Betty Carroll during rehearsal for “Lovers, Wives and Tennis Players” that opens tonight.

entrances.

“If three is a good play, five is better,” he said, laughing.

Peck has written 16 plays, 14 of them comedies that have been seen in 61 theaters and nine states.

One was a musical, one was a thriller.

“I decided it was time to write a farce,” he said.

The cast likes the challenge of comedy.

“Your timing has to be more impeccable than in drama,” said Gaines, whose character is described as a confident, 40-year-old cougar.

“The exact opposite of me in every way,” said Gaines. “I don’t really relate to her at all.”

TGIFR!DAY | February 23, 2018 | 3

But she is a fan of comedic timing, which requires delivering humorous lines with a straight face.

“It’s amazing and fun and really hard to master,” said Gaines, who was also cast in Peck’s first play performed on Kauai two years ago, “Prodigal Father.”

She is looking forward to having a full house each night and promises the audience will get “buckets of laughs.”

“It’s just a good time,” she said. “I think everyone can relate to the awkward that occurs. I’m a fan of awkward.”

Hamilton plays Alan Carroll, an architect who comes to the cottage to present a possible redesign but gets drawn into much more than ever expected.

“From there, the craziness ensures,” he said.

Alan Carroll, he said, is a fun character to play. He gets progressively more anxious, “and ends up with the least amount of clothes possible for this stage. Anytime you play a role where you end up

in your skivvies, I say yes to it.”

This is Hamilton’s first role with KCP since moving to Kauai from Colorado in 2016.

“I’m grateful Richard took a chance on an unknown face to the KCP theater stage,” he said.

Like Gaines, Hamilton said comedy is fun, but more demanding.

“I think comedy is more work because when you’re rehearsing for that comedy you’ve got to try and figure out what the audience is going to laugh at and should we try and keep laughs throughout,” he said. “Even in comedy, you have to have that story that keeps the audience engaged.”

Jeff Demma plays Lyle, who goes to the cottage to meet a woman, but they continually manage to miss each other.

“Things go wrong quickly,” he said.

The play is light-hearted fun, Demma said, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

“A lot of people don’t realize this. Drama is way easier,”

he said. “Comedy is far more difficult.”

That’s partly because there’s no audience during rehearsals. All that changes starting tonight.

“Once you have people in the audience, you actually have laughter, you have to learn to play off the laughter,” said Demma, who was also in Prodigal Father. “You have to be able to play with whatever your audience gives you, or not. That is where every night is different.”

Peck said the cast of ‘Lovers, Wives and Tennis Players’ has been working hard in rehearsal in a quiet theater for months.

That’s all changing, starting tonight.

“When the audience gets here, laughter will startle them,” he said, adding, “The absence of laughter will terrify me.”

Peck said the play is “just entertainment.

“There’s no message. We’re not trying to sell anything. It’s just for fun.”

The audience will decide.

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4 | TGIFR!DAY | February 23, 2018

ITALY COMES TO THE WESTSIDE

Kauai Pasta West general manager, Adam Pompa, mixes a drink at the fully stocked bar and restaurant in Ele’ele.

Photo courtesy of Russell Stokes

Kauai Pasta West opens in Ele’ele

G

et a taste of Italy — on the Westside of Kauai.

Italian restaurant, Kauai Pasta West, recently opened in Eleele for fine dining in a casual atmosphere. It was founded by local chef and owner of Kauai Pasta Lihue,

he decide to create a Westside location.

“I’ve been thinking about Russell Stokes, who grew up opening a second location on the Eastside and overseas for quite some time,” Stokes both restaurant operations. said. “I’ve opened my restauHis Kauai Pasta restaurant rants for local people, not for tourists. So with that in in Lihue, which began in 2006, was so successful that mind, I had to look for the JOHN STEINHORST TGIFR!DAY

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Wi-Fi available, and they can also cater any occasion.

11-10pm • Sun-Wed and 11-1am thurs-Sat

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Bamboo Grill & Sushi, formerly Richie’s Restaurant 2978, is located in the Anchor Cove Shopping Center next to ABC Store.

Dining can be done inside, or on one of the patio dining tables which has a view of the Kalapaki Bay.

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TGIFR!DAY | February 23, 2018 | 5

right location.”

Stokes started working and training with chef Roy Yamaguchi when he was 19 years old. He worked for 10 years at Roy’s Poipu Restaurant and became executive chef.

“It was a really good experience, basically like getting paid to go to school,” Stokes said. “They wanted me to take over the old Roy’s location, and I’m not so sure if it would have worked to have my concept there and keep my prices the same for local people.”

For years, he had been trying to find the perfect location for local residents.

Then he finally recognized the potential of a building next to the Eleele shopping center that contains Longs Drugs and Big Save Market.

“We absolutely overhauled the space,” Stokes said. “It looks like it’s just a night-and-day difference as far as the decor and how it looks and feels.”

The inside of the new restaurant is 3,200 square feet with about half taken up by the decorated dining room and stocked bar with beer, wine and liquor. The

four pizzas on the menu, and they’re not your usual,” Stokes said. “They’re a little more fun. They’re not so mainstream style, more Italian style and kinda contemporary.”

The authentic Italian pizzas are purposely not offered in small, medium and large sizes. They’re available in one size that’s made to share or for one person to enjoy.

“We switched a couple of the salads around also, so there’s definitely some new stuff here and some of the same,” Stokes said. “We’re going to be expanding our menu to do a lot more spe-

cials now that we’ve gotten things a lot more smooth and rolling.”

The restaurant sources ingredients from as many local farms as possible.

They purchase goat cheese from Kauai Kunana Dairy, mushrooms from Lawai Valley Mushrooms and other produce from Kailani Farms and Kauai Fresh Farms.

The restaurant, 469 Waialo Road, employees 30 people and served breakfast for the first time on Feb. 13.

“We’ve been so stoked to open up over here,” Stokes said. “It’s been such a really cool positive response with

a lot of excitement for us opening up.”

The first two weeks were incredibly busy.

“At one point we had a line out the door like 20 deep for three hours straight. It was crazy,” Stokes said. “So the support we’ve gotten is just unbelievable.”

Kauai Pasta West will be open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week and closed on Mondays.

“The vibe here is super nice,” Stokes said. “It’s a great place if you’re going to Koke’e or Polihale for the day to catch us on the way there or on the way back.”

Photo courtesy of Russell Stokes

Kauai Pasta West features specials like Boar Osso Buck with marjoram roasted tomatoes, pesto mash, roasted garlic-rosemary Demi on Valentine’s Day.

other half features a fully equipped kitchen that houses a new pizza oven.

An additional covered outdoor area is adorned with comfortable couches, fire pit and driftwood centerpiece art. The 800-squarefoot patio features a fenced enclosure and subtle lighting for a cozy intimate atmosphere with a small

view of the ocean.

“It’s an epic spot to catch the sunset with a glass of wine right before dinner,” Stokes said. “It’s a pretty nice view out there.”

The food menu will feature many of the same classic items as the Lihue location plus some new additions and daily specials.

“We’re currently running

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6 | TGIFR!DAY | February 23, 2018

A HUMOROUS, DARK LOOK AT LIFE

they open the book, start laughing, show their friends and say “Oh, I gotta get this!”

This cute small book contains plenty of laughout-loud laughs!

Authors Avery Monsen and Jory John have put CYNTHIA & ED JUSTUS together a uniquely dark coSPECIAL TO TGIFR!DAY medic book, with a sense of morbid humor, which seems to appeal to a wide variety ll My Friends Are Dead.” Everybody of of folks, even kids!

The colorful yet someall ages love it! As what simple illustrations soon as they see the cover,

“A

convey the desperate nature of the character’s involved in each joke, such as the tree that bemoans that most of his friends are endtables. Or the mustached baker who sadly states that all of his friends are “bread.” The yeti that realizes all of his friends are hoaxes.

The mine who is sad because none of his friends will talk to him. Or the ventriloquist who has the sudden awareness that all of

his friends are “dummies.”

Even the sheep that comes to understand that all of his friends are followers.

If anything, “All my friends are dead” is a great way to take a humorous look at our situations in life as compared to the strange, sad, yet amusing characters presented in this book, and a great way to laugh a bit about the inevitable truth that we all

will face one day.

For our bookstore, this book has been a surprise best seller! With its bright yellow cover and vacant-eyed brontosaurus, “All

ANNIHILATION’ IS A TRIPPY AND FRIGHTFUL FANTASIA

“T

an area enclosed by a fluid, JAKE COYLE translucent wall bathed in an ASSOCIATED PRESS eerie rainbow glimmer. The Shimmer’s steady expanEfforts to determine what’s sion threatens to swallow inside the Shimmer have surrounding towns, cities and, proven futile. Except for one eventually, everything. survivor, none to enter have ever returned. To step inside is to step into the unknown.

The same could be said for those who come to see “Annihilation,” a trippy, mind-bending cinematic experience that plunges you into a disorienting and dream-like science fiction that contorts and disintegrates much of the genre’s conventions.

This is the bigger-budget follow-up to Garland’ directing debut, “Ex Machina.” The novelist turned screenwriter (“28 Days Later...,”‘’Sunshine,” Join Us ‘’Never Let Me Go”) has here For Breakfast! made good on the promise of “Ex Machina,” a heady if ��������������������� sometimes flat chamber piece about the invention of Open daily for lunch & pupus til sunset a very human-like artificial Located at the Puakea Golf Course intelligence. ����������������������������� “Annihilation,” which is ������������

he Shimmer” is the name given to the mysterious phenomenon that, after a meteor strike, settles along a swampy coastline in Alex Garland’s “Annihilation.” It’s

partly based on Jeff VanderMeer’s novel, has plenty of forerunners and it’s certainly not flawless. There’s an often awkward distance here between Garland’s grand ambitions and his midsized-budget visual effects, between VanderMeer’s immersive imagination and the necessities of physicalizing fantasy in a movie.

But rarely has a film conjured such a thick atmosphere of dread and wonder as “Annihilation,” a movie that unfolds, grippingly, as an existential mystery.

Lena (Natalie Portman) is an ex-Army biology professor at Johns Hopkins whose soldier husband (Oscar Isaacs), after being gone for a year, returns from a secret mission unable to explain where he’s been. Dumbfounded, he promptly begins to split up blood and, in the ambulance ride to the hospital, is overtaken by a swarm of police vehicles.

Lena is introduced to the Shimmer by a laconic psychologist (a miscast Jennifer Jason Leigh) in charge of fielding missions. She, herself, is going in, pulled by inescapable curiosity. Lena joins their group, an all-female squad including a paramedic (a scene-stealing Gina Rodriguez), a physicist (Tessa Thompson) and an anthropologist (Tuva Novotny).

With “Ghostbusters”-like backpacks, they enter the Shimmer where bewilderments and horrors await.

They immediately wake up in their tents, unsure how they spent the last three days. In the lush, tropical forest, they marvel at the teaming mutated species while evading fantastical beasts. It’s equal parts dream and nightmare.

It’s an intoxicatingly weird fantasia, beautifully photographed by Rob Hardy, that’s genuinely head spinning.

While early on the music fails to match the visuals, Geoff

My Friends are Dead” is definitely one of those books that you will never forget! And the benefit of its small size is that it makes a great read just about anywhere, and also a good gift for those you want to cheer up or just make laugh… in a cute dark kind of way!

••• Ed and Cynthia Justus are owners of The Bookstore in Hanapepe.

Barrow and Ben Salisbury’s score grows steadily more hypnotic until a sonically shattering climax.

As frightful as their surroundings are, self-destruction is the theme of “Annihilation.” Each of the five come into the Shimmer marked by their own interior afflictions — a suicide attempt, cancer, addiction, or, Lena’s case, the guilt of betrayal. “Annihilation” is filled with the science of mutating cells — “the rhythm of the dividing pair” — and the suggestion that self-destruction is natural, in molecules and in relationships.

If this is all sounding rather soupy, well, it is. “Annihilation” struggles to connect that insight into its entrancing psychedelia. Lena’s backstory is only glimpsed in brief flashbacks, and her companions’ emotions are unexplored.

Something doesn’t quite sync, even as “Annihilation” renders those inner conflicts with cosmic grandeur.

CHECK DA SCENE

TGIFR!DAY | February 23, 2018 | 7

DENNIS FUJIMOTO TGIFR!DAY

Lea Blum, Julie Ann Rose

Ryuta Gibo - Okinawa, Chuck Brady, Imari Namisato - Okinawa

Tom Brown, Sadie, Cheryl Stiglmeier

ENJOYING BREAKFAST!

“W Hannah Whelan, Sheila Blum, Susanne Blum, Nick Blum

Nana Shimabukuro, Karin Kina, Ayu Kamizato, Kiyono Taira - Okinawa

Polly Lopes, Leo Alejandro, Calvin Tamagawa

Chris Corpuz, Taylor Barroga

Brittney Barreira, Kempee Burgonio, Kristy Bugayong, Aki Matsuyama, Vince Huntley

Jullynn Ramos, Ted Garma, Christian Garma, Cora Garma, Zaesha Ramos

e were not here for two years,” said Pua Rossi of the Kauai Community College Hawaiian Club. “But we came back to help with the Zero Waste trash stations. We also have people walking the aisles to collect discards from the elderly and those who don’t want to come out in the rain.”

The Kauai Community College Hawaiian Club was just one of the many groups from the Puhi campus who turned out to help with the 32nd annual American Culinary Federation, Kauai Chapter Breakfast that served up more than 1,700 meals amidst the morning rains.

“It always rains,” said Eddie and Sonia Topenio who arrived early to beat the rain and enjoy the all-you-can-eat portions of Eggs Benedict, scrambled eggs, Portuguese Sausage, ham, cooked-to-order omelets, pancakes, assorted pastries and fresh fruits, washed down by never-ending Kauai Coffee, assorted Meadow Gold juices and milk, and Kauai Springs Water with entertainment by Sarah Tochiki and the college’s music program.

The event was a benefit for the ACF and the Kauai Community College culinary arts program.

Bronson Yadao, Fred Cowell, Darla Domingo, Tanelle Martin, Sharon Hyla

8 | TGIFR!DAY | February 23, 2018