FESTIVAL ’90 : STAGE REVIEWS OPEN FESTIVAL : ‘Ka’ahumanu’ Details Missionary Strife

A Pacific Rim theme emerging in many festival shows is cultural confrontation.

The Hawaii troupe Kumu Kahua is staging works in repertory at the Inner City Cultural Center that deal with culture clash in 19th-Century Hawaii. Playwright Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl’s “The Conversion of Ka’ahumanu” dramatizes the impact on a Hawaiian queen when New England missionaries arrive on the Sandwich Islands in 1820 to Christianize the heathens.

The production is curious for two reasons: Like the company’s alternating drama (“Ka’iulani”), this play is a women’s story (no men appear), and the work is not the knee-jerk condemnation of the Christians (Bridget Kelly and Patrice Scott) that you might expect from an indigenous Hawaiian theater.

Company playwright Kneubuhl (who is Samoan and Anglo) doesn’t paint anything in black and white, except the white man’s disease. And she illuminates a topic that Hawaiians remain touchy about: their historic prejudice against “untouchables” in their own race, called kau wa , strongly personified by actress Nan Asuncion.

Leonelle Akana ripely captures queen Ka’ahumanu’s dignity and humor, and Polly Kuulei Sommerfeld is a pua (blossom) as a native girl tempted by the Lord.

At 1308 S. New Hampshire Ave., concludes Thursday and Saturday, 8 p.m. $10 ; (213) 466-1767 or (213) 387-1161.

‘Tumbling After’

Tucked inside the Open Festival is the gay-and-lesbian-themed Open and Out Festival at Celebration Theatre. In “And Jill Came Tumbling After,” a lesbian Latina paralegal must reconcile her compassion for a rapist-murderer when she realizes the man is gay.

The thankless role of the overwrought paralegal is a burden on an actress, but Christina Sampaio is burnished enough to pull it off. It’s not playwright H.L. Cherryholmes’ soapy plot but his impressionistic, tight structure that wins your attention, propelled by Bonnie Kennedy Negrete’s precise staging.

Another deft element is a defendant who speaks only Spanish (the impressive Emerson Chevez). The playwright cleverly signals the character’s meaning to a non-Spanish speaking listener. This is clearly a production of form over substance.

The show, on “loan” from its regular run at The Playbox Theater, is really a UCLA production, where it was workshopped last spring.

At the Celebration, 426 N. Hoover St., Tuesday only, 8 p.m. $5 ; (213) 666-8669. At Playbox Theater, 1953 N. La Cahuenga Blvd., Fridays and Saturdays (including this weekend), 8:30 p.m., through Sept. 22. $8; (818) 769-9347.