The Monstrous Afterlife of Queen Lili'uokalani: From Colonial Caricature to Contemporary Hawaiian Performance

Authors

• Jenna Gerdsen

Abstract

This essay offers a comparative analysis of how Queen Liliʻuokalani (r. 1891–93), the last reigning monarch of Hawaiʻi, is represented through nineteenth-century American political cartoons and contemporary Hawaiian theatre. Political cartoons depict the queen as monstrous—grossly oversized and threatening—to justify U.S. military occupation and her overthrow. In response, contemporary Native Hawaiian playwrights Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl and Moses Goods transform Liliʻuokalani into a multidimensional figure through whom postcolonial Hawaiʻi is reimagined. Their productions feature differing perspectives on the queen, staging her through multiple voices and interpretive positions. Kneubuhl’s January 1893 (1993), a living history play staged across the grounds of ʻIolani Palace, and Goods’ Kiʻi ā Loaʻa (“Go and Get it”) (2024), an augmented-reality installation using QR codes to project recordings of monologues and archival materials onto and alongside the queen’s statue in front of the palace, explore what it means to encounter Liliʻuokalani and her legacy. These works emphasize Liliʻuokalani’s mutability and Hawaiʻi’s ongoing susceptibility to colonial redefinition. Her “monstrous afterlife,” or the ways her image is constructed, circulated, and reimagined across time and form, functions as a site of projection where fears, desires, and political claims take shape. Examining these forms together reveals how Liliʻuokalani continues to serve as a conduit for negotiating Hawaiʻi’s past, present, and future.

Recommended Citation

Gerdsen, Jenna (2026) "The Monstrous Afterlife of Queen Lili'uokalani: From Colonial Caricature to Contemporary Hawaiian Performance," Comparative Drama: Vol. 60: Iss. 3, Article 4.
Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/compdr/vol60/iss3/4