THE MODJESKA THEATRE COMPANY does its startlingly original work in an unlikely setting: the city of Legnica, former site of the main Soviet military base in Poland. When the abrupt departure of the Soviet Army in 1993 left behind an urban ghost town in the heart of a living city, Jacek Glomb started to search actively for new ways to reach out to the town's inhabitants as part of the city's revitalization effort. He founded the Modjeska Theatre and began putting on shows recounting events in the lives of the local citizens, as well as siting classical dramas in surprising arenas (e.g., Shakespeare's Coriolanus in an old Prussian barracks). The theatre company is now well known for its socially motivated theatre productions engaging marginalized urban communities, alternative spaces, abandoned post-industrial settings, and post-military installations for their productions. The group is named after Helena Modrzejewska, Poland's most acclaimed actress in the late 1800s, who moved to California and became equally celebrated in America as Helena Modjeska. The theatre's newest production, Jacek Glomb's interpretation of Othello, is set from beginning to end on the deck of a sailing ship named the "Speranza", on a journey from Venice to Cyprus that in fact takes place between Acts One and Two in Shakespeare's original. As hope, indeed, had to be strong on the high seas, especially in those times, the worst of the terrors of the deep turns out here, of course, to be jealousy. At the recent 10th International Shakespeare Festival in Gdansk, awards were won by Jacek Glomb for Best Direction and by Ewa Galusinska for Best Female Performance. The performances in Santa Barbara are part of the Lit Moon's World Shakespeare Festival, the first of its kind in the United States. The festival celebrates the work of the world's greatest playwright, showcases some of the world's most exciting talents working with Shakespeare today and provides exhilarating theatre for the audience. This year the festival is highlighted by eight fully staged productions, plus related panels, addresses, exhibits, music and performance art, and numerous social opportunities to hobnob with local and visiting theatre artists. The premiere of the Modjeska Theatre Company's Othello in Los Angeles has been produced by Arden 2 as part of a series of special events celebrating its 10th anniversary as a non-profit cultural organization dedicated to developing international, interdisciplinary, and cross-generational collaborative projects in theater, video, art, architecture, and ecology.
