Another cultural feast – art and theatre to nourish the soul!

Taking in an opening at the AGO last Wednesday, we particularly responded to Anselm Kiefer’s Palmsonntag (Palm Sunday)

“a monumental installation consisting of a 30-foot-long palm tree cast in fiberglass and resin, its roots clotted with mud, surrounded by a cycle of 44 large paintings encased in glass and framed in lead. Overwhelming in scale and sweeping in content, Palmsonntag conveys the operatic scope of Kiefer’s creative enterprise that crosses through spiritual, religious and mythical cultural territory.”

There was something very beautiful about both the individual panels and the whole and the sense of spirit shone through even before one read the background!

I’ve been reading Robertson Davies, one of Canada’s literary icons, for years, but happened to be reaching the end of the Deptford Trilogy when I spotted a poster at our local library for a three night run of this one man show. It was being staged at Hart House , a beautiful old theatre at the heart of the university, just round the corner from Massey College where Davies reigned as Master. It seemed silly not to check if there were still tickets . . .

Davies’ speaks with a voice that is both acerbic and wise, as well as very witty.  As the Times put it in his obituary, he ‘encompassed all the great elements of life…His novels combined deep seriousness and psychological inquiry with fantasy and exuberant mirth.’ This one man show, put together entirely from his writing and lectures,  was both stimulating and entertaining!

There is no nonsense so gross that society will not, at some time, make a doctrine of it and defend it with every weapon of communal stupidity. Roberton Davies