Los Angeles. 1973. Nick White is a successful Hollywood photographer with a dysfunctional family. His wife, Connie, is an alcoholic ex-actress. Their children, Jennifer and Joel, are fiercely competitive with each other. Joel is barely closeted and Jennifer enjoys taunting him. One wet afternoon when it is indeed raining in Southern California, a young Samoan man knocks on their door and introduces himself as Gary Cooper.
‘MY NAME IS GARY COOPER’
» Where: Kumu Kahua Theatre, 46 Merchant St.
» When: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, and 2 p.m. Sundays, through Feb. 22 (except Sunday)
» Cost: $20
» Info: www.kumukahua.org Opens in a new tab or 536-4441
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Welcome to Kumu Kahua Theatre’s production of New Zealand-born Samoan playwright Victor Rodger’s provocative dark drama, "My Name Is Gary Cooper." Rodgers mentions in the playbill that several Samoan families named their sons "Gary Cooper" after a Hollywood film starring Cooper, "Return to Paradise," was filmed in Samoa in the early 1950s.
Nick was part of the production crew for Cooper’s film and has fond memories of Samoa. He invites the young man to come in.
The Samoan Cooper tells the White family that he has come to Los Angeles to become an actor "like Gary Cooper." They all doubt his chances, but Nick says he can stay with them until he finds his way around L.A. Nick also gives him a camera.
Jo Ramsey gives a commanding performance in the title role, first as an unsophisticated "noble savage" who is awestruck by the Whites’ clothes dryer, later as a quick study who adapts to "civilized" ways. Bronwen Souza (Jennifer) and Randall Galius Jr. (Joel) are a terrific duo as the vicious siblings. Galius is an accomplished physical comedian, and Souza steals several scenes as the dead-serious flirtatious daughter.
Donna Blanchard (Connie) establishes Connie as cynical and world-weary with her first scene. Several scenes later other facets of the character are revealed.
Playwright Rodgers begins and ends the story with an encounter between a much older Cooper (the Samoan) and a motormouth American graduate student outside a movie theater in Auckland where "Return to Paradise" is being screened. The student is researching stereotypical representations of Polynesians in Hollywood films. He doesn’t have much to say to her.
Another set of flashbacks depicts Cooper’s unhappy childhood in "paradise."
Kumu Kahua addressed the subject of ethnic stereotypes in Hollywood films with its production of Philip Kan Gotanda’s "Yankee Dawg You Die" in 1997. Hollywood stereotypes are not the dominant theme here. The White siblings make a number of innocent, albeit painfully ill-founded, assumptions about their guest, Samoan culture and Polynesians in general, but this is first and foremost a story about dysfunctional families.
Anyone who shares the playwright’s encyclopedic knowledge of vintage Hollywood films, 1970s celebrities and American cultural trivia will enjoy the show for the many cultural references that percolate through it. Those who don’t won’t.
Either way, "My Name Is Gary Cooper" is intense and thought-provoking theater for people of all cultural backgrounds.
