Every Oahu itinerary inevitably eventually hits the same hibiscus-strung wall. You’ve done the sunrise hike (and – if you’re anything like me – cursed quietly the whole way up). You’ve forgotten the terrible currency conversion rate and spent way more than you should at Waikele. And, you’ve eaten poke in at least three different food trucks across the most populated island of Hawaii.
As return traveller – who really needed a break from another evening featuring Mai Tais and Hula Pies – my crossroad moment arrived on evening five. Done with eating my body weight in sugary American carbs, I did what any self-respecting itinerary needs: I put on an actual outfit instead of denim shorts and a swimsuit for the first time since landing, then outsourced the entertainment to professionals. No step-counter required.
Enter ‘Auana – Cirque du Soleil’s first-ever resident production in Hawai’i, and a rare departure from the brand’s usual trick of singing everything in a made-up language rather than a real one.
It lives at the purpose-built Outrigger Theater inside the Outrigger Waikiki Beachcomber Hotel, right on Kalakaua Avenue. The venue sits smack on Waikiki’s main strip, an easy stagger from most hotels in the area, with none of the shuttle-timing anxiety or car-park blood sport that usually comes with a night out on holiday. Turn up, sit down, be dazzled, go find a cocktail after. Itinerary solved.
A Hotel Theatre That Refuses to Behave Like One
I walked in with the exact scepticism reserved for most dinner-and-a-show situations in my life. I donned my pretty maxi dress and braced for polite, forgettable mediocrity. A show you clap for out of obligation, like applauding a toddler’s recorder recital.
Instead I got an intimate 784-seat room, tiny by Cirque standards (their Vegas shows routinely cram in well over a thousand people), meaning zero nosebleed seats squinting at acrobats the size of Sims characters. One where, when a performer starts shaping a story into a table of sand a few rows away, you can actually watch her fingers do it.
Then, a single acrobat appearred, the lights dropped into a twilight-ocean projection and a lone guitarist perched casually on the edge of the stage, eventually swapping his instrument for the breathy, faintly haunting sound of a Hawaiian nose flute. Not remotely the sequins-and-thumping-bass chaos I’d mentally prepped for, I took a few perfunctory snaps then put my phone away within about 90 seconds.
Eighty Minutes, Zero English
‘Auana – a Hawaiian word meaning “to wander,” or veer off the beaten path runs a tight 80 minutes, no interval. And every single lyric is sung in ‘olelo Hawai’i. No invented Cirque babble, no watered-down English chorus thrown in for the tourists in row 12. This is apparently only the second time in the company’s history it’s committed an entire show to one real language, and you feel it. It does not need you to understand a word to land the story.
It works so well because the creative team is stacked with Native Hawaiian voices actually running the show: Dr. Aaron J. Sala as cultural creative producer, Kumu Hula Hiwa Vaughan choreographing, Manaola Yap on costumes, linguist Keao NeSmith making sure every lyric is doing real work rather than just sounding pretty on a poster.
Director Neil Dorward is at the wheel, and the result is a production that reads like Hawaiian storytellers who happened to recruit some alarmingly talented acrobats.
The Bits That Actually Got a Gasp Out of Me
More than a handful of moments alone are worth the ticket. There’s a lyra act – aerial hoop, for those of us who did not attend circus school – built around Hina, the moon goddess, so graceful it briefly cured me of my usual “I could probably do that” delusion. There’s a sand-painting sequence retelling the creation story of Papahanaumoku and Wakea (earth mother, sky father, for anyone – like me, pre-show – googling under the seat), where an artist reshapes a table of sand into the islands themselves in real time. And there’s a Hawaiian-language rendition of “Over the Rainbow” that had the woman beside me quietly disintegrating into a tissue. I was approximately two seconds behind.
But, there’s real comedy too, mostly courtesy of a trickster figure based on the demigod Maui, who spends the show alternating between dragging terrified audience volunteers into bits – one memorably scored to the Hawaii Five-0 theme – and casually hauling islands up out of the sea with his fishhook, as you do.
A rolla bola act performed to the rhythm of surfing had me white-knuckling the armrest on behalf of a total stranger’s ankles; a rollerskating duet built around the doomed lovers of the Naupaka legend is genuinely excellent skating; and a fire-and-strength “Wheel of Life” finale, costumed in fabric strips nodding to lehua blossoms, brought the kind of heat that made the front row visibly flinch backward. Correctly, in my professional opinion. That’s fire. Lean back.
Why This Earns a Line on Your Itinerary
Logistically, ‘Auana slots into a Waikki evening with suspicious ease: 80 minutes, no interval to awkwardly queue for warm chardonnay during, family-friendly, walkable from most hotels on the strip regardless of where you’ve actually parked your suitcase. Want to make an occasion of it? The on-site Maui Brewing Co – pairs island-inspired fare made with fresh, locally sourced produce with 36 craft beers on tap in expansive open-air interior – effectively solving the eternal holiday dilemma of where to eat before a show without you having to make a single decision.
But the real reason to build a night around it isn’t the convenience – it’s that ‘Auana is spectacular in the exact way Cirque always is, but specific in a way most touring productions never bother to be about the place they’ve actually landed in.
For a first-ever Hawai’i residency, that is a difficult needle to thread without it turning into a costume. ‘Auana threads it. I’d know I came in with my arms crossed, ready to write a very smug paragraph about cultural tourism, and instead spent the encore wondering if I should learn Hula Hoop…
‘Auana performs nightly at the Outrigger Theater, Outrigger Waikiki Beachcomber Hotel, Honolulu. Tickets and VIP packages are available through Cirque du Soleil
