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MELE
TIMES change and so do attitudes. In 1975, playwright John Kneubuhl had the audacity to suggest that Hawaiians did not own their culture because they did not speak the language.
Radical, man. So radical that the play, "Mele Kanikau" -- one of the first to make wide use of the Hawaiian language -- never crossed over from paper to the stage. The title translates to "Song of Mourning" and was written as a lament about the passing of traditional Hawaiian culture.
Born of Samoan, English and German ancestry, Kneubuhl grew up in his Samoan grandmother's thatched hut until he was 13 years old. He was educated at Punahou and Yale and spent 20 years as a TV writer in Hollywood before moving to Hawaii in his search of home and identity, two themes that ran through much of his later work.
Kneubuhl passed away before "Mele Kanikau" could be produced, but the future hasn't been as dire as he predicted. The notion of a society in which every Hawaiian youth is fluent in the tongue of his ancestors, is rapidly becoming a reality, and now, 23 years after "Mele Kanikau" was written, the drama will finally be produced by Kumu Kahua.
