More Theater brings site-specific charm to Santa Barbara
WORDS Ninette Paloma
On a bustling Monday afternoon at Stearns Wharf, the crowd gathered around Moby Dick restaurant considers the fork in the road. To the right a gleaming oyster bar beckons – platters resting on a bed of crushed ice and piled high with pacific coast crustaceans. Lunch chatter swells with the rising tide.
To the left a hidden backroom awaits, with steaming bowls of clam chowder and theatre programs peppered across a long communal table. I head in that direction and sink into an empty seat as an actor begins to carefully lay out bundles of herbs onto a worn piece of linen. She ties an apron around her waist as the sound of a melancholy whale drifts through the intimate space. Whalers’ Triptych I has begun.
A simple desire to rouse the tradition of site-specific theatre on the Central Coast led Meg Kruszewska to form More Theater earlier this year, kicking off their debut season with the minimalist adaptation of a mighty tale. Inspired by Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick and Tara Karr Roberts’s Wild and Distant Seas, Kruszewska distills a story of commerce and revenge down to its human essence, focusing the spotlight on four characters: Mrs. Hussey the innkeeper (Alaina Dean), Ishmael the sailor (Tim Ottman), Queequeg the harpooner (Ed Lee), and Elijah the prophet (Will Muse).
Leaping around a captivated audience in striking fishmonger aprons hand painted by artist Diane Arnold, the actors crouch at the head of the table, shout at each other from across the room, and gaze out toward the harbor from the picture windows framing the jewel box space. The cadence of each monologue reflects a casual familiarity that blends instinctively into Whalers’ Triptych I‘s physical surroundings. When audience members raise their glasses and join the cast in a sea shanty sing-along at play’s end, the effect is complete. Layering the interrelationship between story and space with the easy charm of community theatre offers up a delightful debut for Kruszewska and More Theater. Add in a fresh experience to an oft-overlooked area, and you have all the makings of a live arts concept with serious sea legs. Sign me up for next.
