Theatrical Review

It started off as a normal Friday night at Hualalai.  Members were finishing their day’s activities—a round of golf, a set of tennis, an hour or two of paddling or swimming.  But then fifty members showered and dressed got themselves up to Ke ‘Olu to attend the EternaLife Institute’s Annual Star Awards Banquet, an evening of cocktails and dinner organized by the Hualalai Pretty Pathetic imProvisational Players.

That’s when the normal evening changed to one of surprises and hilarity.

Our members were met at the entrance to Ke ‘Olu and were given name tags and programs.  However, the name tags did not bear their real names.  Instead, each of our members was instantly transformed into an EternaLife Product Distributor.  Whisked to the bar, they met their fellow distributors and the executive team of EternaLife.  (They also found out that they had just been bussed up from Uncle Billy’s Hotel in Kona.)

The actors mingled and shared their stories with the audience throughout the cocktails and when Betsy Donaldson, the Event Planner, blew her whistle everyone gathered in the dining room for a three-course meal during which the Executive Team reviewed EternaLife’s history, its past products and its products for 2013 and beyond.  Power point presentations, bonding experiences and demonstrations were all provided.

Then the intrigue began.  Was Carole-Sue Benson, Director of Product Development, really pregnant?  Was the father of her child the Director of Product Distribution, Chuck Benson?  Had the founder, Arnie Kravig, embezzled money from his own company? Did Shelley VanDerHook, CFO, embezzle money too?  And does she have a secret crush on another executive?  And what about Betsy Donaldson?  Why won’t the guest motivational speaker, Cal Gordon, even look at her?  And what about Cal Gordon?  How many books will he sell at this gig?

The audience/distributors joined right in.  The acting was divine, the writing succinct and illuminating, and the direction as close to perfection as it could be.  This reviewer hasn’t been entertained so much since the The Ziegfeld Follies of 1931.

If the Hualalai Pretty Pathetic imProvisational Players ever perform again, don’t wait.  Hurry—nay rush!—to make your reservations so you can enjoy an evening that will go down in theatrical history.

Below are photos of the actors and a copy of the program.

If you did not see this performance you might as well go out and kill yourself.

–Atkinson Barnes, theater critic for The Big Island Times