If the title of Kumu Kahua Theatre’s 44th season opener, "Shoyu on Rice," sets off a loud "locally incorrect" bell in your head, you will love this play.

If it doesn’t, you should see this play. You will laugh, and you will learn.

Not only is Scot Izuka’s new work howlingly funny, it’s about things locals know and rarely say. It’s about the deeply embedded ideas that too often unthinkingly govern our behavior. And about how, at times, we can decide not to let ourselves be governed by "being local" — or just being accepted.

Like, if you’re really local, you know that you don’t put shoyu (translation: soy sauce) directly on rice.

We live in a so-called "mixed plate"/"melting pot" state and everybody you meet is hapa-something and related to everyone else. But we are extremely racially prejudiced. Maybe not as much as we used to be, but in the time period of the play, the ’80s, we all were. And anyone who claims they weren’t is lying.

This is a time period when "where you wen’ grad?" was a defining question. Where you went to high school was taken as absolute gospel as to who you were, how you were raised, what your potential might be. And integral to that was your race.

But the other code we used was food. Did you eat rice or potatoes? Dashi or chicken broth? Watercress or broccoli or kalamungay? Shoyu or ketchup or gochujang?

The play in a nutshell is this: An English teacher imported from Kansas is betrothed to a local Japanese boy. He’s out of the country; we never meet him. Miss Decker (engagingly played by Joanna Mills) is teaching at an all-boys Catholic high school and is trying to a) learn pidgin (always good for a laugh), b) understand why she cannot please her soon-to-be mother-in-law no matter how hard she tries, and c) understand and communicate with her students.

The subplot that draws the plot together involves a thwarted romance between two students. It’s about who you really are, who you are taken to be by others, and who you decide to become — big issues but told in an approachable talk-story kind of way.

There are no poor performances in this show but veteran island actor Jim Aina is a standout as Dad, the man who will become the hapless teacher’s father-in-law if only his wife will let up about shoyu on rice. His character is so smart, so insightful, so likable and yet so much under his wife’s thumb that you can’t stop laughing or loving him.

His wife, played by Kat Nakano, skillfully pulls off "If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy" without making you hate her. We learn that she has forgotten a few things, such as how she almost didn’t get to marry Dad because of family opposition.

Director Reiko Ho deserves notice for some things so right on and yet so subtle, as when the haole newcomer is finally seen not wearing shoes in the house without anyone commenting on it. And don’t get me started on the ’80s music in the scene changes. I was seat dancing.

Playwright Izuka writes in the program: "Don’t think too hard about it. Just enjoy the show."

You will do both: think and enjoy. As my oh-so-’80s brother would say, "Garans ballbarans."