Personal Opinion Play. Kamau Is a Play

¶ … personal opinion play. Kamau is a play that was written by Hawaiian playwright Alani Apio, and was initially performed in the early part of the 1990's. This is a fairly complicated dramatic work that involves a number of disparate elements that seemingly clash in the lives of the play's two central characters, a pair of cousins named Michael and Alika.

In many ways, this work of drama is centered upon conflicts of culture that are associated with time periods -- both the indigenous Hawaiian culture of the past and the contemporary, Westernized culture (which largely revolves about tourist trade) in the present. The author does a highly credible job of depicting the inherent conflicts between these two cultures that have resounding impacts in contemporary society. To that end, Kamau is a good look at the inexorable march of time's effects upon the values and heritage of indigenous Hawaiians.

One of the play's most commendable attributes is the realism that the author imbues it with -- both in his depiction of the circumstances that dictate the plot, as well as in his representation of the personality traits and the moral ambiguities of the characters themselves. When this aesthetic quality is combined with the overarching cultural significance of this particular literary work, it culminates in a tale that would benefit a wide variety of people to read.

The principle conflict of author Alani Apio's Kamau -- the pressures of indigenous Hawaiians to yield to the relentless influence of Westernized culture and its way -- are largely characterized through the struggles of Alika, who is the play's protagonist. Alika has recently graduated high school and has inherited the burden of providing for the family of his dead brother (who committed suicide). To do so, Alika must daily submerge within the throes of Westernized culture while working as a tour guide.

These two worlds -- that of indigenous Hawaiians and that of their American colonizers -- reach a grave point of contention when Alika's employer purchases a large tract of land that his family has lived on for several years. Alika is offered a promotion in the bargain, but he also must relocate his entire clan -- which of course symbolizes the yielding of indigenous Hawaiian culture to American capitalism and its influence.

Meanwhile, his brother Michael is utilized by the author as a figure who staunchly stands as a symbol of traditional Hawaiian culture. Michael is greatly opposed to the family's moving and to Alika's role in attempting to provide for it by earning an increased salary and benefits through his promotion. As this brief synopsis alludes to, the primary theme of this work is the attempted subservience (and resistance to) Westernized culture that conventional Hawaiian culture must endure.

Alika's role as being central to the representation of this conflict is underscored by the following quotation, in which the hard-drinking young man begins his job by seeming to embrace American tourist patronage of Hawaii. "We at Aloha Tours are here to serve you, so if you have any questions at all, just ask!" (Apio 19). Kamau essay a basic personal opinion of the play.

This quotation is highly important to the author's representation of the theme that will characterize the vast majority of the events that takes place in this story. The fact that Alika, a native Hawaiian, proclaims that he and his company are going to "serve" their American patrons represents the fact that all of the cultural aspects of indigenous Hawaiian heritage are also serving, and are subservient to, the dominating, financial gains of American capitalism.

Although Alika ultimately seems to embrace this change by choosing to abide by the purchase of his family's land and taking advantage of his promotion to help care for his family, one of the fascinating aspects of the play is the ambivalence with which he does so.

This ambivalence, which is personified in Michael's character as outright antagonism towards to the impending Westernizing of Hawaii and the loss of the family's land, is even alluded to in the title of the play, which is a Hawaiian word for "to preserve." Moreover, the reader is able to actually gain a fair degree of insight into the internal conflict Alika endures every day while working at the tourist company -- and which intensifies once the land that his family's home is centered upon is bought -- through some fairly interesting, innovation theatrical devices.

The mores of the indigenous Hawaiian culture are not only reflected by Michael's (who is a traditional Hawaiian fisherman) opposition to the sale of the family's land. Apio actually goes beyond the usage of living characters to summon the cousin's deceased ancestors, which are obviously used to represent the heritage and the deep-rooted cultural values that are the Westernize influence is threatening to supplant.

Readers are able to see George, the deceased husband and father of the family that Alika is striving to take care of, as well as his mother, all of whom emphasize the fact that the traditional Hawaiian lifestyle and heritage cannot dissolve so easily as the purchase of land. Alika' mother emphasizes this fact in the following quotation, in which she tells her son that "when it's other people's land being taken away, no one cares, but when it's your own you start to pay attention" (Apio).

Yet perhaps the most effective tool that the author employs to emphasize the conflict between the appropriation of Hawaii and its indigenous culture by that of Westernized culture has nothing to do with ghosts, land, or Alika's inner turmoil, and everything to do with tourism. There are a number of poignant interactions between Alika and tourists, such as the Clements, that attest to this clash of cultures and the attempted cultural colonization of Hawaii to supplement its physical one. The following quotation, in which Mrs.

Clements expresses her interest in facets of Hawaiian culture, demonstrates this fact. Mrs. Clements: And when I was studying in college, I found Hawayee -- I hope I'm pronouncing it right -- to be the most fascinating place of all because here you all are -- so many different races and religions in such a small space -- but you all seem.