Albert Wendt asserts that when Indigenous Pacific Islanders regionalize the Pacific through literature and art, they reclaim and reassert control over their individual communities and introduce a decolonizing thought process that transfers to native readers and spectators. In the 1970s a cultural renaissance of artistic and performative traditions spread throughout the Pacific Region, speaking to the specific and individual decolonization experiences of each island grouping. Hawai'i, in particular, has nurtured a lively and active theater scene since the 1940s, focusing largely on representing Native Hawaiian and Local identity in Hawai'i since the conception of Kumu Kahua Theatre (KKT) in the 1970s. In the late 1980s playwrights like Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl and Alani Apio emerged, ushering in an era of Native Hawaiian representation that mirrors contemporary Native Hawaiian concerns. These concerns have yet to be fully explored in contemporary theater scholarship leaving a large body of plays written and produced throughout the Hawaiian Islands open to interpretation and examination. Using a decolonization methodology and a material semiotic approach to dramatic criticism, my dissertation examines the cross-cultural depictions found in the plays produced in Hawai'i to better understand how Native Hawaiian indigenous identity is depicted and juxtaposed within an Americanized landscape.

Using a selection of plays written by haole (Caucasian) and Native Hawaiian playwrights in Hawai'i, I argue that when Native Hawaiian characters are depicted using responsible historiography and foundational indigenous epistemologies, the colonizer vs. colonized binary is broken down and the in-between space that best represents how Native Hawaiians are dealing with Americanization today is revealed. As works of drama, these plays illustrate the multi-dimensional aspects of colonial influence on Native Hawaiian thought and customs to audiences made up of Hawai'i's diverse population. They demonstrate how intercultural theatrical aesthetics, western dramatic strategies, and indigenous epistemologies create a unique forms of syncretic theater in Hawai'i. The breadth of topics and perspectives found in these plays suggest that challenging colonization and the constant negotiations native identity has made in the midst of American politics and globalization are important features of Hawai'i's homegrown theater practices.

My dissertation relies on the works of Dennis Carroll, Justina Mattos, Sammie Choy, and Diana Looser in my discussion about Hawai'i's theater. I rely heavily on theories and scholarship written by Pacific and Hawaiian theorists in order to contextualize Hawai'i's relationship with the Pacific and balance its colonial relationship with the U.S.A. Works by Albert Wendt, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, J. Kehaulani Kauanui, Noenoe Smith, Michelle Keown, and Alice Te Punga Somerville, to name a few, help me to identify the Pacific and, even more specifically, the Hawaiian concerns addressed and criticized within the plays' plots and characterizations. Finally, intercultural theater theories by Rustom Bharucha, Daryl Chin, Craig Latrell, and Christopher Balme aid in my investigation of the cross-cultural exchanges made within the script and during the performance.