Four Quartets: Performance by John Farrell

2/22/2020    
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Blue Hill Public Library
5 Parker Point Rd, Blue Hill, ME, 04614

Back by popular demand, John Farrell, co-founder of Figures of Speech Theatre in Freeport, will recite from memory “Four Quartets,” by T.S. Eliot, at the Blue Hill Public Library on Saturday, February 22nd at 2:00 pm. Farrell gave a performance of the Quartets in August of 2018 to a full house at the library. This performance will be followed by an informal conversation with John Farrell.

First undertaken in 2011 with permission — rarely granted — from Eliot’s estate, Farrell’s recitation of “Four Quartets” affords audiences an opportunity to immerse themselves in 1,000 lines of poetry, a summation of T.S. Eliot’s views on poetry and art, on mystical experience, and on humankind’s relationship to history and time. Eliot completed “Four Quartets” in 1941, as Britain slid into the abyss of World War II, and he feared that civilization itself might perish in the coming years.

“Unlike encountering the poems in a book,” Farrell says, “hearing them recited out loud gives people a chance to absorb a complex and nuanced work in a very direct way. At the same time, I bring an actor’s sensibility to the text and a commitment to delivering the poems in a way that allows the poetry to speak for itself.”

This program is sponsored by the library, and is free and open to everyone. For more information call the library at 374-5515.

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