To mark the company’s 20th anniversary, Naked Shakes is bringing a stripped-down version of William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” to Elings Park in Santa Barbara this weekend.
The UC Santa Barbara theater company will be performing its second weekend of shows starting Thursday night in Elings Park after performing on the university’s Commencement Green by the lagoon last weekend.
“It’s amazing, not only that we have lasted for 20 years, but it feels like we’re just getting started,” said Irwin Appel, the founder and artistic director of Naked Shakes.
It’s only the second year that Naked Shakes has performed at Elings Park. Appel said bringing the production to the park is part of their work to always reimagine how to bring the words of Shakespeare to audiences.
“The reason it’s called Naked Shakes is because it’s about the actor and the work, the idea that you take an actor in a bare space and the imagination of the audience and you make magic,” Appel said. “What they can expect is a wildly imaginative, physical show that is also very accessible, understandable, clear, and a fresh interpretation of the play.”
UCSB junior and actor Melanie Montegani said she loves doing the production outside. The play’s island setting fits well on the park’s stone stage, surrounded by trees, with the Santa Barbara landscape as the backdrop.
“There are a lot of challenges that have been really fun to learn to overcome,” Montegani said. “It’s really hot, but I love natural light. It’s so immersive. This play is all about being lost on an island, and being outdoors has been really cool.”
Appel founded Naked Shakes 20 years ago with the idea that the best way to learn a play is by performing it. The company has toured around California and Arizona, performing at Taliesin West and the Verona Shakespeare Fringe Festival in Verona, Italy.
He was inspired to create Naked Shakes after struggling to grasp material in literature classes but loved learning it through performing.
“A lot of people who have never seen Shakespeare before, never even seen a full-length play before, have really been excited and turned on to what we do,” Appel said. “That’s what drives me and inspires me constantly, bringing new people to Shakespeare, new people to theater.”
UCSB senior and actor Claire Ruberg said being a part of the 20th anniversary production has given the casts of past and present a chance to meet.
“It feels awesome,” Ruberg said. “I think having all the alumni come back and get to watch it is really cool. We got to meet a lot of them, and that’s been really nice.”
Ruberg is in UCSB’s acting program, and when she knew she would be sticking around Santa Barbara for the summer, she thought there was no better way to spend her time than by being a part of the production.
“Naked Shakes is really collaborative, so we get to do a lot of the choreography ourselves, and it actually gets implemented into the show,” Ruberg said.
Appel said he hopes audiences feel recharged from the theatrical experience, but also that they take away the play’s message of forgiveness.
“The whole play, (Prospero) has been trying to get his vengeance, and then he makes the discovery that the rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance,” Appel said. “The idea of the world we’re living in right now, the country we’re living in right now, don’t we need more of that? Don’t we need more forgiveness or understanding?”
The Naked Shakes production of “The Tempest” is choreographed by Christina McCarthy, composed by musician Jim Connolly, with Pesha Rudnick as associate director and Daniel Stein as the creative consultant.
Naked Shakes will perform at Elings Park’s Godric Grove at 5 p.m. Thursday and Friday and at 3 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $17 for adults, $13 for teenagers and seniors, and free for kids under 12. Tickets can be purchased here.
Performances also will be held at 4 p.m. Oct. 3-5 on Commencement Green at UCSB for free. Click here for more event information.
