The enthralling and enigmatic star of the silver screen, Greta Garbo, was an icon of the so-called “Golden Era” of Hollywood. A star from a young age, Garbo never enjoyed the limelight of celebrity and built an entire public persona based on being elusive from the press. In the modern day, she might be a celebrity without any social media presence (gasp!). In her day, Garbo was an extremely well-documented woman of mystery.
In Moonlight Reflections with Garbo, the award-winning one-woman show written and performed by Juliet Morrison, Garbo tells her own story. Through Morrison’s creative embodiment of this complex character, audiences get to know the star throughout her life, from her early years in Sweden to the glamor and fame of Hollywood of the 1930s, and beyond. Moonlight Reflections also introduces influential individuals from Garbo’s life, people like Louis B. Mayer (one of “M”s in MGM) and her mentor, Mauritz Stiller.
Moonlight Reflections weaves a vision of Garbo’s experience that Morrison calls both enchanting and haunting. “This is a theater experience designed to impact your soul,” she says. “When I embody Garbo, I believe every moment with my soul, and I want to give you an authentic theater experience where you get lost in time.” In re-living someone else’s experience, romantic nostalgia of Hollywood’s golden age aside, relatability is always an important factor. Are our own questions recognizable in Garbo’s struggles? “Garbo was so ahead of her time with respect to the choices she made,” says Morrison. “All she wanted was to be happy, and isn’t that what we all want?”
Morrison’s New York run of Moonlight Reflections with Garbo received much attention, and she’s excited to share her creation with Santa Barbara audiences. See this intimate, expressive performance piece about a woman who fascinated the world at Center Stage Theater for just one performance, on Saturday, December 14 at 7 p.m. https://bit.ly/3Zh9VpL
