A Walking Shadow at Paliku Theatre

Windward Community College presents A Walking Shadow, written by Taurie Kinoshita and performed by Windward CC Theatre 260 students onstage at Palik? Theatre October 19 through October 27. The performance chronicles the tragic and true story of Myles Fukunaga, a mentally ill 19-year-old, who was executed on Oahu in 1929. This heartbreaking, expressionistic drama recounts Fukunaga’s horrifying descent into madness, his unspeakable crime, and the ultimate injustice of his trial and death sentence.
Myles Fukunaga was the eldest of seven children born to immigrant parents from Japan. He was a brilliant student, and his only dream in life was to go to college and continue his education. However, his family’s extreme poverty meant that Myles had to work full-time to support his brothers and sisters. Utterly isolated, Myles became severely depressed and attempted suicide two times.
On September 18, 1928, Myles, now severely mentally ill, copy-catted the 1924 Leopold and Loeb murder case in Chicago. Unlike the Leopold and Loeb case, and despite being mentally ill, Myles Fukunaga was sentenced to death. His defense attorneys did not call a single witness. The jurors at his trial had read biased reports on Myles in the papers. Appeals for clemency and psychiatric evaluations were denied. 19-year-old Myles Fukunaga was hung in an Oahu prison. By contrast, that same year, other murderers were only sentenced to life imprisonment.
A Walking Shadow deals with agency—mental and cultural—exploring the consequences of racism, lack of representation and the plight of those afflicted with mental illness. Using transcripts of interviews, the story is told from the perspective of Fukunaga, and will take the audience into the mind of someone who is troublingly sick.
Ages: 16 and older