THEATER NOTES : Applauding ‘Godot’ : Theater’s founder overcomes his near blindness in portraying Vladimir at Santa Paula. It’s Shakespeare in Varsity Park Plaza.

In the current production of Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot,” Santa Paula Theater Center founder Dana Elcar performs locally for the first time since glaucoma left him virtually blind.

Not that you’d know it from his performance. Elcar carries a cane and squints a bit in his portrayal of Vladimir, but both could be taken as idiosyncrasies of the character, not the actor.

Deborah Lavine accepted the assignment to direct “Godot,” because, she said, “I’d never done the play. I’d never even seen it. But it’s part of the theater lexicon, and something that I should address at some point.”

Lavine’s considerable experience as a director includes time with Other Voices, the Disabled Writers and Artists Workshop.

The Los Angeles group membership includes visually- and hearing-impaired actors, quadriplegics, a whole range of people whom she considers “ . . . not ‘disabled,’ but some of the most talented people I’ve ever worked with.”

She has worked with Elcar before his eyesight deteriorated.

“He hasn’t been blind long enough to learn Braille yet, so he has to find a whole new set of tools to accomplish what he’s spent 40 years learning,” Lavine said.

One accommodation to Elcar’s condition is a narrow strip of wood toward the front of the stage; a physical reminder for him not to proceed too close to the lip.

“It’s funny,” Lavine said. “We put that thing there and he never gets near it--it tends to gravitate to the mound and the tree (that form the play’s two basic scenic elements), using them as an anchor. Which works well, since the play has an existential quality of the characters’ being trapped and unable to get out of the muck.”

The quality of Elcar’s performance is the best testimony to his and Lavine’s talent. In any event, it isn’t her greatest challenge in this area. The director recalled working with a blind dancer in a musical. “She was tap dancing, taking leaps . . . whenever she came near the lip of the stage, talk about having your heart in your throat!”

WILL TO LIVE IN M’PK: Forced out of his storefront theater near the Moorpark Melodrama earlier this year, California Shakespeare Company founder William Fisher was considering a move to Agoura Hills. It would have been Ventura County’s loss; Fisher’s productions have been uniformly excellent.

All’s well that ends well: He’s found a new location, in the Varsity Park Plaza near Moorpark College. Fisher promises productions of “Macbeth” from Sept. 8 to Oct. 18; “The Tempest” from Nov. 13 to Dec. 13. “Richard III,” “ Much Ado About Nothing” and “Measure for Measure” will be staged in 1993.

CAVIAR TO THE GENERAL: Two acclaimed productions that originated in Thousand Oaks will come to Simi Valley later this year. Normally based at Thousand Oaks’ Arts Council Center, The Performing Artists Guild will produce their versions of Gardner McCay’s “Sea Marks” and Peter Shaffer’s “Equus” at the Simi Valley Cultural Center.

Also on the slate is the Classics in the Park version of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night,” which the Guild is co-producing. “Twelfth Night” plays at 8 p.m. July 16-17; “Sea Marks” opens at 8 p.m. on July 18 and continues at 2 p.m. Sunday. For further information, call 522-5501.