Film: In Xanadu

Brought to Atlanta for the first time by San Francisco's ShadowLight Productions, IN XANADU splices traditional Balinese wayang kulit, or shadow puppetry, with slivers of Shakespearean theater in a graceful East-meets-West amalgam. Tibetan, Chinese and Indonesian theater techniques blend into a 63-minute film with montages and traditional Tibetan and Mongolian music. Kubilai Khan, a great and powerful Mongolian ruler, is left utterly heartbroken in the wake of his wife Chabui's death. Like many men of power, Khan believes all's fair in love and war; he invokes the friendly local shaman to lead him on a wild Chabui chase to the underworld to recover his beloved. In Xanadu received the Union Internationale de la Marionette USA Citation for Excellence, puppetry's highest award. Free-$7. 8 p.m. Center for Puppetry Arts, 1404 Spring St. 404-873-3391. www.puppet.org.