Hot Lava

A Hawaiian Vaudeville Festival Diary

by Tim King

Clutching my $6 meal coupon, I stare bleary-eyed at the long airport cafeteria line. Hawaiian Air - what a company! Seven hours delay before takeoff and all I get is a $6 meal.

A couple in front of me are grumbling. We exchange complaints and find we have a common mission. I have just met the illustrious Alan Plotkin, the videographer who is filming the Hawaiian Vaudeville Festival. Our future is uncertain. Are we going to be stuck in a condo with 100 jugglers and 300 exhaust-belching chain saws, or are we taking a trip to paradise?

The after-breakfast scramble for new airline reservations is successful. Four hours in the bar before the flight will give me plenty of time for a few health drinks. We're finally flying friendly skies again!

Hawaii at last! We are promptly met in Hilo by the Hawaiian Vaudeville chauffeur and whisked to the Flying Karamazov Brothers' show at the University of Hawaii. The performance was par excellence, but the party afterwards was where the festivities really began.

I fmd myself in the Puna Kahuna (Seven .Seas Circus) house with about 20 other early festival arrivals. A triple-spin height ceiling, music, food and beer make for an instant all-night party. The group is quite diverse: Bohemian street performers, escape artists, magicians, musicians, tap dancers and other great conversationalists.

The last few days with no sleep have taken their toll. A few hours of shut-eye is in order. In what feels like minutes (and is not actually much more), it is morning. A quick stroll to the ocean gives time for my mind to clear. The fact that I am in Hawaii really sinks in. The scenery is spec­tacular and there is plenty of sun. I can feel my pale winter pallor withering away as a stout tropical tan starts peeking through.

On to the festival site - Kalani Honua. I deem it fully equipped: hot tub, swimming pool, sauna, massage table. The retreat is on about 20 acres and can easily accommodate all 100 of us. It is located on the Puna Coast about one mile from Black Sands Beach and five miles from the current lava flows.

I am determined to return with at least a peeling burn, so I spend the first after­noon lounging in the sun by the pool. A few fellow jugglers are chatting about the festival agenda over pitchers of beer provided by the Renegades.

We're talking a full schedule: Hawaiian theme competition ($200 first prize) on Tuesday, Club Renegade on Wednesday, public show in Hilo on Thursday and nightly parties with Bosco's one-man band.

Daily excursions are also planned to Volcano National Park, queen's bath, the boiling pots, the steam vents, hot cave, green lake and Thurston lava tubes.

Talk turns to the hot lava excursions which leave nightly at 3 a.m. Apparently small groups of people are hiking up to the lava flows to melt their shoes off. Well, that's out of the question! I tell myself I will not risk my neck juggling on hot lava.

The Hawaiian theme competitions are very entertaining, though conservatively judged. Most of the acts are new pieces with lots of improvisation. Susan Boyce and Brian Jones's tap dance a cappella number, which takes first prize, is a clean professional performance. I prefer the wild comedy stuff, like The Bohemians' two­part act, "Half-Monkey, Half-Spider, Half-Man" and "Aloha Full Moon."

The Renegades (last year's winners) perform a slap-stick surfing act where they attempt juggling in a heavy swell. The entire event is on film and video copies can be purchased from the Hawaiian Vaudeville Company, Honokaa, HI.

It is 3 a.m. Why am I up? Most of all, why am I in this van on my way to juggle on hot lava? My cries for mercy are met with tired satanic laughter.

After a long and bumpy drive, the vans come to a stop and all 20 suicidal jugglers pile out. We are given a quick lecture, possibly our last, about the perilous journey ahead. We must walk several miles along a dirt road, cross the half-mile "a'a" flow and then walk up the moun­tain over a pahoehoe flow.

Walking on "a'a" turns out to be like walking on mounds of broken glass or strolling through a razor blade recycling center. One slip and you're finished! The next catch is that when you walk on the pahoehoe flow you must tap your walking stick in front of you to detect thin spots where you could fall through into the white hot lava below.

The first part of the journey up the road is a piece of cake. The "a'a" is scary but passable. The walk up the pahoehoe is risky, but fun. New flows in the distance glow like city lights. When we reach the live flows there is an eerie peacefulness. The flow moves in a slow but decisive way.

In next to no time we bring out the white gas and juggling torches. All fear is set aside as a hot lava juggling frenzy ensues. Peoples' shoes smoke as they juggle on the hot flow. Jugglers run toward the flow with sticks, jabbing, poking and joking.