Sunday, January 07, 2007

Arts - period ended 1.31.2006

Quaker Tapestry Centre/Penn, William/Rowntree, Joseph/Fry, Elizabeth/World-famous tapestry coming to Norwich/Norfolk Eastern Daily Press/Norfolk/England/UK/16-Jan-2006//The Quaker Tapestry, which has been compared to the one at Bayeux, goes on show from February 1 until March 11 and admission to the exhibition is free. ...
Arts/Theater/Underground Railroad/New acting troupe offers 'A Raisin in the Sun'/Daily News Journal/Nashville/TN/USA/30-Jan-2006//…Bradley Academy Museum and Cultural Center presents the young actors of Generation for Creation performing "A Lesson in History: Society of Friends: Stories about the Underground Railroad" in conjunction with the Underground Railroad exhibit by Dr. George Smith.

Saturday dates for the production at 2 p.m. only include Feb. 4, Feb. 25, March 4, 11 and 18. One final evening performance is set for 7 p.m. March 25.

Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for school-age children. Tickets are available at the Bradley Academy Museum, 867-2633, 415 S. Academy St., Murfreesboro. ...

Arts/Theater/Self-Discipline/Simplicity/All Brooding and Breeding/International News Service/Sydney/Australia/Oceania/27-Jan-2006//... The Sugar Wife (Soho Theatre) Verdict: A 19th century wife's bondage .... QUAKER self- discipline makes for sparse, unhysterical theatre. ...

Arts/Theater/Business/Simplicity/Writing keeps the audience sweet/This is London/London/England/UK/24-Jan-2006//Elizabeth Kuti's play is that unfashionable thing, a worthy historical drama, that takes place among the Quaker community in 1840s Dublin. ...

Arts/Theater/Business/Simplicity/The Sugar Wife Soho Theatre, London/Financial Times/London/England/UK/24-Jan-2006//… Trend-spotters have recently spied a new phenomenon: the rise of the "New Quakers" - the principled wealthy who favour fair trade, organic produce and artisan clothing over designer wear and ostentatious consumption. It's simplicity at a price, though - you have to be able to afford to be pure. And as Elizabeth Kuti's new play shows, this dilemma is far from new. Her absorbing drama considers the price of a clean conscience and illustrates how difficult it can be, in a messy world, to live an ethically pure life.

Set in Dublin's Quaker community in 1850, the play focuses on the Tewkley household. Samuel Tewkley is a wealthy tea and coffee merchant. His wife Hannah is a devout Quaker, who devotes her time to ministering to the city's poor and promoting abolition. But when they play host to Sarah Worth, a freed slave who now gives talks, questions start to arise. How does Hannah reconcile her disdain for material wealth with the price of refitting her spacious house in suitably plain style? Where does Samuel buy his sugar cane? Mostly the West Indies, we learn, but every so often a cheap shipment from the southern states of America helps to keep his profit margins healthy - and, as he protests, his employees in work.

No character is immune from this sort of self- justification and Kuti deftly picks at the arguments, lines up compromise against conscience, and ponders the attraction of purity. The play is fascinating, never less than interesting, but it is also too slow and repetitive for its own good. Lynne Parker's production for Rough Magic, though sensitive and beautifully uncluttered, could also be much brisker. Too often the characters seem to serve a point and Hannah spins on a sixpence towards the end. But still the piece has an austere appeal and features some fine performances, particularly from Jane Brennan as the tormented Hannah, Susan Salmon as the wise and pragmatic Sarah, and Barry Barnes as the affable but troubled Samuel.

Tel 0870 429 6883...

Arts/Theater/Business/Simplicity/First Night Feature: The Sugar Wife/London Theatre Guide/London/England/UK/23-Jan-2006//... Tea and sugar – can’t have one without the other.” That is the lesson of history, according to Samuel Tewkley, an affluent Irish tea merchant and Quaker. ...

Arts/Theater/Quaker History/First Night Feature: The Sugar Wife/London Theatre Guide/London/England/UK/20-Jan-2006//... “Tea and sugar – can’t have one without the other.” That is the lesson of history, according to Samuel Tewkley, an affluent Irish tea merchant and Quaker. His elegant but sparse rural mansion is the setting for Elizabeth Kuti’s new play, The Sugar Wife, which examines the themes of political morality, sexual politics and philanthropy, and is also, I fancy, a meditation on the nature of happiness, writes Tan Parsons…

The play, which is making its UK premiere at the Soho Theatre, has just been nominated for Best New Play and Best Set Design in the Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards. It is set in nineteenth century Dublin and focuses on the relationships between Samuel and his wife Hannah, and their eagerly awaited guests, Sarah Worth – an emancipated slave from America’s deep south – and Alfred Darby, the philanthropic Yorkshireman who first bought and then freed her.. ...

Arts/Theater///Amy Wynn Pastor builds funds for Colonial Players/Norristown Times Herald/Norristown/PA/USA/22-Jan-2006//... Caitlin Dougherty. "Amy Wynn attended a Quaker school as a child growing up in Pennsylvania," TLC's Web site bio continues. "In ...

Arts/Television/Altruism//God and Man on Television/Slate/Washington/DC/USA/27-Jan-2006//.. Sometimes, the shows take on a Quaker cast, being content merely to fill up your living room with a general sense of good will and righteousness. Last fall, NBC tried out Three Wishes, a reality show marketed heavily to church groups and on Christian radio stations. In it, Christian rocker Amy Grant played the earthly angel, doing good deeds for needy families just because it's a nice thing to do. This year, ABC is airing In Justice, in which a team of Innocence Project-type lawyers play God, combing through death-penalty appeals to see who deserves a second chance, and then, in an hour of overwrought courtroom drama, freeing the wrongly convicted. "Every one of us could use a little mercy now," Mary Gauthier—herself a famous addict redeemed—sings over the closing credits. ...

Arts/Painting/Quaker History/Hicks, Edward/Kingdom Sum/Forbes /New York/NY/USA/24-Jan-2006//…One of the top paintings to be sold was Edward Hick's "Peaceable Kingdom," which crossed the block at Sotheby's (nyse: BID - news - people ).

Sotheby's knew they had a winner on their hands indicated by a pre-sale estimate of $2,000,000 to $3,000,000, which would make it one of the most-expensive Hicks ever sold. Even though Hicks painted more than 60 copies of "The Peaceable Kingdom," Sotheby's felt that its large size and impeccable provenance would lead to a strong price.

When the hammer fell, Sotheby's prediction held true, with "The Peaceable Kingdom" just topping the high-end of the estimate at $3,152,000, achieving the second-highest price ever for an Edward Hicks. (In January 1999 at Christie's, a different copy of "The Peaceable Kingdom" sold for $4.7 million, setting a world record for both American Folk Art and Hicks.)

Hicks is arguable the most-important and well-known American folk artist. Born in Buck's County, Penn., in 1780, Hick's began his artistic career as sign painter and, after a brief stint as a farmer, became a full-time decorative painter. In addition to his artistic endeavors, Hicks was also a Quaker minister, which explains the consistent religious themes in his work and the theme of the painting, which was taken from the Book of Isaiah: "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them." ...

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