Institute History
Description
A Cage of Fireflies (working title) tells the story of three elderly sisters of the kibei generation: sent as children to be raised in Okinawa, then returned to live and work in Hawai‘i. The oldest sister, Yukiko, confines herself and the youngest, Kimiko, to their Honolulu apartment, where they enact the small, private gestures and rituals of daily life and cling to a dream of returning to Okinawa. The middle sister, Mitsuko, has been charged with running their family’s orchid nursery and has inherited the honorific “on?san” (“older sister”), a title that should by rights belong to Yukiko. As long-hidden hopes, resentments and regrets surface, the sisters are forced to confront the fundamental nature of their love for each other. The play explores the tug-of-war between progress and preservation, the selfish and the selfless.