School drama club portrays Japanese fisherman, world beneath sea

MATT NEVALA

May 09, 2008 at 11:21AM AKST

Nearly four months of practice and preparation paid off for the Dillingham Middle-High School Drama Club, which successfully capped its production of "The Honorable Urashima Taro" in late April.

"We were very happy to see the turnout we had," said Pat Engen, one of the play’s three co-directors.

The cast included Connor Ito as the Turtle; Richard Corbett and Mark Lopez as the two boys; Alex Himschoot as Urashima Taro; Christopher Marx as Kimo; Elizabeth Himschoot as Michiko; Amber Nelson, Kristin Vance, Erin Andrew, Mark Lopez and Elizabeth Himschoot as the sea creatures; Lizbeth Piazza as the Sea Princess; Kristin Vance as Fall; Christopher Marx as Winter; Erin Andrew as Spring; Mark Lopez as Summer; Richard Corbett as the Sea Scorpion; Amber Nelson as the woman and Kristin Vance as Sentara.

Engen co-directed the play with Cathy Flavin and Kim Piazza.

"We worked right up until we presented the play," Engen said. "We started with after-school practices on Tuesdays and had more and more practices as we got closer to the performance."

Kim Piazza supplied a description of the play in an e-mail.

She said the play begins with the arrival of an old sea turtle on a beach near a small fishing village on the island of Shikoku, Japan. Taro, a poor fisherman, saves the turtle from two boys who are taunting and beating it with a stick.

Taro’s kindly action convinces the turtle that Taro is someone to be trusted, and she persuades him to leave his family and journey to the bottom of the sea.

Taro heads beneath the sea, a world of indescribable beauty, and courageously confronts and destroys an evil sea scorpion to restore peace to the kingdom of the Sea Princess. In doing so, Taro unknowingly spends almost his entire life beneath the sea.

He returns to the beach and discovers 80 years have passed, his wife is dead and his son is now an old man with a grandchild of his own.

Taro faces the important decision between returning to life beneath the sea and the eternal youth that comes with it or facing impending death by living his last years as an old man on earth.

He eventually chooses life on Earth, so he can have the chance to share love with other human beings. The turtle returns to the sea and the play ends with Taro living on the beach and beginning his new life with his family.

Engen said the cast performed the play for Dillingham’s third-, fourth- and fifth-graders on Friday, April 25. They reprised their performance the next evening and closed with a matinee performance on April 27.

Engen said the drama club does plays annually.

"But I’m new to the community," she said. "I was happy to do this production and continue the drama club’s work."

Matt Nevala can be reached at (907) 348-2438 or toll free at (800) 770-9830, ext. 438.