Alika Kealoha is a beleaguered man.

His mother's spirit is after him to pull himself together and get on in the world. His kanaka cousins are on his case for his haole ways and for having sold out to "the man" by working as a tour guide for Mainland tourists. And now his employer has bought his ancestral land and scheduled his family for eviction. Little wonder that Alika has chosen to escape by drinking beer and sleeping.

Such is the premise for "Kamau" by Alani Apio. In other hands, it could be a satiric social comedy, but Apio — and codirectors Wil T.K. Kahele and Harry Wong III — give it the sharp edge of social commentary.

When it was first presented by Kumu Kahua in 1994, I called it "a powerful piece on the nature of personal and cultural compromise." It plays just as powerfully today, with an additional implied question. Is survival in a changing world enough to justify that dual loss of identity?

Apio reminds us through a minor character that this is not just a Hawaiian theme. Many cultures have suffered unfair, wrenching changes. But individuals survive and sustain their personal worth through love — perhaps through their "aloha," a word that Alika initially finds hard to explain.

While "Kamau" might be subtitled "Aloha 4 Sale," and seen to fault the negative effects of tourism and foreigners on the native Hawaiian social structure, its real strength comes from the humanity of its characters.

James K. Bright gives the play its solid center by keeping Alika likable. He plays him like the good-hearted cousin in every family who acts without guile or self-interest.

The play's dramatic question ("kamau" means to persevere) is whether he can continue to trudge on — and even advance — under multiple pressures that assail him.

Other Hawaiian characters fare badly. One cousin (William Murray) escapes self-loathing through suicide. Another (Aitofele Simpson-Steele) chooses violence and faces a future of imprisonment.

But the instruments of change are not portrayed as evil exploiters. Alika's boss (Neal Milner) has his own family to feed and wants to give Alika a leg up the corporate ladder. A teacher tourist (Laurie Tanoura) is compassionate in her attempts to understand the disenfranchisement of the native people.

The play's strongest statement, however, is made in its final scene. As Alika takes up the hollow phrasing of his memorized tour-guide spiel, Simpson-Steele's character paces the edge of the stage like a caged animal, glaring at his spectators. As the lights fade we hear his labored breathing — raw, impassioned, and the prelude to a scream that never comes but that nevertheless reverberates in our imaginations.

It's the kind of moment that makes live theater worthwhile.