Q&A WITH RYAN OKINAKA (WHO YOU AGAIN?)

Daniel Akiyama: Why do you write plays?

Ryan Okinaka: I believe our lives are measured not by our wealth but by the stories we leave behind.  It’s important to me that I keep the people in my life who are no longer with us alive through the stories I tell. As a writer I like to pay tribute to the people in my life who inspire me. My friends and family inspire the characters I create, the situations you see, and even the words you hear.

DA: Tell me a bit about where Who You Again? came from. I know there was the one-act play performed at Palikū Theater in 2018; did you always intend for this short piece to become a full-length play?

RO: I was approached by Taurie Kinoshita to write a short scene depicting local-style love in any form I’d care to show it. I wrote a ten-minute play called The Adventures of Kaika Boy and Molepo Girl. The scene was about a grandson and his grandmother living with dementia. It was a cute scene where the grandmother believed she was this superhero in a magical forest and the grandson would play along, and by doing so, the forest became real for both of them. At the time I was dealing with the loss of my grandmother and I wanted to create a story where a grandson and grandmother, separated by age and disease, could connect. I turned that scene into a full-length two-act play, which is now being produced at Kumu Kahua Theatre.

DA: With a number of plays under your belt, including iHula, how has writing Who You Again? compared?

RO: iHula was really a collaboration of my love of theater and my brother’s passion for hula. I found writing iHula to be quite straightforward. I already had all the hula numbers provided by my brother. So it was a manner of pulling inspiration from the songs, the hula, and the kaona (hidden meaning) of mele to build the scenes and plot to fit the hula. I really do feel that the hula really made up 50% of iHula and my writing made of the other half.

Who You Again? was a story built purely from my imagination and inspiration from those around me. It really started off as a therapeutic tool to help me process the passing of my grandmother. I feel like I was more prepared to write Who You Again? as I learned a lot from my first play and applied a lot of the things I learned from [director] Harry Wong during the rehearsal process for iHula.