The wild and wooly Lit Moon Theater Company is up to its brilliant shenanigans again. It has been just two years since the first Lit Moon World Shakespeare Festival surprised and delighted Santa Barbara audiences, and here it goes again, making good on its promise to go biennial.
The 2008 festival presents artists from Bulgaria, Finland, Macedonia and the European Republic of Georgia — the first time Georgia’s main theater company, the Marjanishvili State Drama Theatre, has performed in the United States.
The festival is running at several different venues through Oct. 26. It will include several of the Bard‘s best-known and best-loved plays, although you aren’t likely to have experienced them in quite this way.
The six fully staged productions — many of them world premieres — include an all-female Julius Caesar, in Macedonian and English; a classic Winter’s Tale; A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Georgian; an all-male fusion of Othello and Measure for Measure, directed by the Bulgarian director Lilia Abadjieva; a stylized version of The Tempest (called Blue Tempest) “inspired by banjo playing, silent movies, domestic squabbles, and the color blue”; and King Lear — or a near Lear, called Poor, Poor Lear, in which Finnish actress Nina Sallinen portrays a 90-year-old “first lady of the theater”-type who chooses Lear for her farewell performance and starts to see stunning parallels between her life and Lear’s.
The plays, their dates and times, are as follows:
» Othello/Measure For Measure (world premiere, in English) at the Center Stage Theater, 2 p.m. Sunday, 9 p.m. Thursday and 7 p.m. Oct. 25.
» The Winter’s Tale (in English) at the Center Stage Theater, 7 p.m. Friday, 9 p.m. Saturday, 7 p.m. Monday and 2 p.m. Oct. 25.
» Julius Caesar (world premiere, in English and Macedonian with English supertitles) at the Center Stage Theater, 7 p.m. Saturday, 4 p.m. Sunday, 7 p.m. Thursday and 9 p.m. Oct. 25.
» A Midsummer Night’s Dream (U.S. premiere, in Georgian with English subtitles) at the Lobero Theatre, 7 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday.
» Blue Tempest (new production), produced by Lit Moon Theatre Company/John Blondell, in Westmont College’s Porter Theater, 7 p.m. Oct. 24 and 4 p.m. Oct. 26.
» Poor, Poor Lear in Porter Theater, Westmont College, 9 p.m. Oct. 24 and 2 p.m. Oct. 26.
The festival also includes related free panels and addresses, plus an art exhibit, music and social events. For more information, click here or call 805.565.6778.
Subscriptions for the six-play festival are $120 for adults and $90 for students. “Choose your own” subscriptions of three to five plays are also available, offering 10 percent off single ticket prices. A $300 Patron Pass admits to all plays, parties and events, and includes a donation to Lit Moon. Single tickets are $25 for adults and $19 for students to all plays, except The Winter’s Tale ($16 adults, $10 students).
Tickets to all events and venues can be purchased at the Lobero Theatre Box Office at 33 E. Canon Perdido, online at www.lobero.com or by calling 805.963.0761.
Gerald Carpenter covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributor.