Play by acclaimed Okinawan writer premieres at Orvis

MANOA—The Manoa Readers/Theatre Ensemble, a coproduction of the University of Hawaii at Manoa College of Languages, Linguistics, and Literature and UHM Outreach College, will stage the world premiere of Oshiro Tatsuhiro`s The Cocktail Party. The play will be performed free of charge in Honolulu on Thursday, October 27 at 7:30 p.m. in UHM Orvis Auditorium.

Oshiro Tatsuhiro, considered Okinawa’s foremost living writer, won Japan’s highest literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, for his novella, The Cocktail Party, in 1967. He was the first Okinawan author to be so honored. The Cocktail Party was rewritten as a play in 1995, and was published for the first time (August 2011) by the University of Hawaii Press and Manoa Journal in Living Spirit: Literature and Resurgence in Okinawa, edited by Katsunori Yamazato and Frank Stewart.

The Cocktail Party is about an Okinawan man and his teenaged daughter, and their appeal for justice after an American serviceman sexually attacks her on the eve of the reversion of Okinawa to Japan.

Following the performance, a panel including author Oshiro Tatsuhiro and Living Spirit editors Katsunori Yamazato and Frank Stewart will discuss the issues that arise in the play.

For more information, visit www.outreach.hawaii.edu/community.

Thursday, October 27 at 7:30 p.m.
The Cocktail Party
University of Hawaii, Orvis Auditorium
Free