A new experiment in playwriting form.
After each playreading we usually have a vigorous and fruitful discussion that ranges freely across topics that are inspired by the play, as well as by current events. In October, 2021 our group discussion meandered to the subject of Renshi poetry, a collaborative writing practice that many of us admired.
Also at about this time, in mid-October, one of our beloved and vociferous contributors to post-reading discussions revealed that he had Stage IV Pancreatic Cancer, and the doctors said that he might have up to six months to live.
We were stunned. At our next meeting we read his charming play, Was supposed to be the story of the first Molokai Fishpond, but the Moke Fish ate the Storyteller twice. It allowed us to laugh together and celebrate having Peter Charlot in our midst while he was still physically able to participate.
One of the playwrights in our group, Daniel Akiyama, followed up on these events with an email, suggesting that we try a new experiment in collaborative playwriting. "I was inspired by the idea of the Renshi Poets, to propose to the group that we may want to try Renshi Playwriting," he said, "The concept is a bit like Amish friendship bread, where part of the original yeast is kept intact as a living culture (great metaphor) that gets passed from writer to writer. I thought if anyone wants to join in, I could curate, and we could determine an order based on the order in which people contact me...I was thinking Peter Charlot could have the first slot -- he could write something new, or repurpose something old, and that could be the starting point."
“I was inspired by the idea of the Renshi Poets, to propose to the group that we may want to try Renshi Playwriting...”
The idea was pitched to the group on October 21, 2021. Everyone loved the idea, and we quickly had 15 playwrights who wanted to jump in on the experiment. Each playwright would contribute up to five pages, and each would ONLY see the pages of the playwright immediately preceding them. Peter Charlot wrote the opening to the play. He created the two central characters, and the world in which they existed. He also provided a title: Searching For Keaka, which was revealed to the group when the completed play was read aloud.
Peter did not live long enough to hear the completed play. His wife and daughter stayed close to him in his final days, and he passed away in the early morning hours on November 7, 2021.
Searching For Keaka was co-written by: Peter Charlot, Daniel Akiyama, Justina Mattos, Deenie Tagudin Kam, Jeannie Barroga, Nick Higginbotham, Jackie Pualani Johnson, Steven Smith, Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl, Eric Stack, Donna Blanchard, Randal McEndree, Kealiʻi Beck, Therese Barnette, and Debito Beamer. It was Peter's final foray into playwriting, written within the last three weeks of his life. At the end of October he sent an email saying, "The Hui delivered so much aloha to me, I am so touched." This Renshi playwriting experiment turned out to be the perfect way to say goodbye to someone who has loved playwriting for decades.
We started 2022 with a zoom reading of the play, and we were pleasantly surprised that the experiment worked! The story made sense, and had a coherent theme. Tentative plans are in the works to stage a live reading in Fall 2022, as a way to welcome face-to-face interactions again when Covid (hopefully) releases its grip on us. Hopefully we will tweak our original guidelines a little, and try the Renshi experiment again because it was a thrilling adventure into a new form of collaborative writing.