This is the context then of When We Dead Awaken, a play that describes an encounter between a retired sculptor Arnold Rubek and Irena, a model who had sat for him. It is a reckoning of sorts, an accounting of the value of a life. And sadly, it concludes that the artistic life eschews living and is dead!
The Via Dolorosa, the way of suffering, runs 600 metres from the Antonia Fortress to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and is believed to be the route that Jesus walked on the way to his crucifixion. There are today, nine Stations of the Cross. I am thinking of this today as we approach Easter,…
Martin Esslin in The Theatre of the Absurd said of the absurd If a good play must have cleverly constructed story, these have no story or plot to speak of; if a good play is judged by subtlety of characterization and motivation, these are often without recognizable characters and present the audience with almost mechanical…
We are in Italy and have travelled two and half hours through olive groves, vineyards, oleander and the occasional maize crop. The road from Milan to Malcesine is a drive on roads sandwiched between the Alps and the country and then between the Alps as backdrop and Lake Garda on one side and the dramatic…
What is reality? How are we to know what is ‘real’ and what is merely imaginary? Pirandello (1867-1936) dealt with these matters in his drama. In Henry IV, he created a character, Henry IV, who was deluded. He falsely believed that he was Henry IV. His father, Marquis Charles Di Nolli, employed a number of…
If you are in the Serengeti, and you look across the sea of grass, for that is what Serengeti means and is, a sea of grass, you will see how boundless is that space, the Eastern African plains. It stretches on forever and the eye cannot take in the vastness of it. Faraway, the air…
It is the centenary of Karl Jaspers’ General Psychopathology (Allgemeine Psychopathologie)this year. Jaspers (1883-1969) was only 30 years old when this influential text was published. Yet, the book has endured and is still in publication. So, what is it about this book, a textbook of descriptive psychopathology that continues to make it relevant to contemporary…
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