Wonders with needle and thread
 

by Aditha Dissanayake

Dating back to the time of Kuveni, weaving and sewing have always been associated with the alluring charm of womanhood. The touch of deft fingers on soft fabric creating beautiful works of art be it on the cloak of a king, a cushion, table cloth or bed-cover have continued well onto the 21st century.

Proving how true this is, giving the opportunity for everybody interested in adding beauty and colour to their lives, transferring the mundane into the exotic, Hilda Herat and her friends have got together to hold an exhibition and sale of Cottage Crafts at the Girl Guides Association, Colombo 7 on November 26, 2005.

The event titled Lace Crafts will present cushion covers, table linen etc. designed by Hilda Herat together with Shadow work stitching and other creations by Nelum Munasinghe, Daphne Bandara, Kamini Jayasekara, Seeta Kappetipola, D.S. Gunasekara, Manel Thammita and several others.

Having discovered the pleasures of creating exquisite products with needle and thread, beads and lace, Nelum Munasinghe says "Some of us engage in this as a hobby, some as a means of earning a living but our main intention is to add beauty and colour to everyday lives with the nick-knacks we have created". Adding that her favourite is 'shadow stitching' she explains this form of needlework, to the uninitiated, as 'stitching on the reverse on material like organdy'.

Gushing over the creative powers of a thread and needle, ribbons and bows, stiff wire and lace, apart, with Christmas round the corner, if you are someone who loves a good bargain, Lace Crafts might prove to be the best place to be, to begin your Christmas shopping.

So, make an entry in your diary for November 26, anytime between 9 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. to visit the Girl Guides Association to buy bonbons, candles and other Chirstmas decorations, home-made food including pickles and wines and gifts that would suit everybody on your Christmas-presents-list. Go with forward looking thoughts and who knows, with luck you might realize all your "what-shall-I-give-him/her-for-Christmas" questions have been solved.

Rosaline - Romeo's first love
 

The World of Arts by Gwen Herat

Romeo And Juliet as well as Hamlet are two of William Shakespeare's plays that have puzzled and intrigued me as to why the Bard decided the inappropriate treatment with which he identified their characters. Romeo and Hamlet happen to be two of the main male characters that are immortalised by scholars and critics alike.

Yet, he had to let them down their bearings. Why on earth had he to introduce a wench called Rosaline as Romeo's first love and why did he fail to identify Hamlet as the Prince of Wales when he was a right royal Englishman of his time. Even in private life, Denmark had nothing to do with Shakespeare nor with Anne Hathaway.

Mercutio who is Romeo's friend and a kinsman to the Prince of Mercurrial from which he has derived his name was aware of Romeo's relations with Rosaline. He is struck by Tybalt under Romeo's arm. Mercuttio resented Rosaline. So did Benvolio his other friend;

Mercuttio - 'Where the devil should this Romeo be?

Came he not home tonight.

Benvolio - Not to his father's. I spoke with his man.

Mer. - Why, that same pale hard-hearted wench that Rosaline

Torments him so, that he will sure run mad. ACT. 11 Scene IV

Rosaline's character is much talked about but does not appear in more than in one Act. He had already confessed his love for her to Friar Lawrence. Many directors of movies and dramas as well as choreographers have highlighted her presence. Some have even placed her at the Capulet's ball;

Friar - 'Our Romeo hath not been in bed tonight

Romeo - That last is true; the sweeter rest in mine

Fri. - God pardon sin: was thou with Rosaline.

Rom. - With Rosaline? My ghostly father, no. I forgot that name and that name' woe.

Fri. - That's my good son: but where hast thou been?

Rom. - I'll tell thee, ere thou ask it me again.

I have been feasting with my enemy; Where on a sudden, one hath wounded me.

That's by me wounded; both our remedies

Within thy help and holy physic lies;

I bear no hatred, blessed man; for, lo

My intercession likewise steads my foe ACT. II Scene III

After forsaking Rsosaline, Romeo has fallen in love with Juliet who is only thirteen years and would have been fourteen on Lammas Eve had she lived. In performing Juliet, any actress should come from the right latitude with no hint of northern skies. She needs far more than a child's experience.

Experiments with young actresses have usually failed. Few Victorian players spoke the lines properly.

After the death of Mercuttio and Benvolio's vanish from the play, Romeo is left alone to fight his battles. Friar Lawrence supports him but leads him and Juliet to their destruction in a desperate bid to save the young lovers. The Friar who earlier believed Romeo to be in love with Rosaline and resenting their union, hardly bargained for Romeo's confession and the role he had to play in the tragedy;

Friar - 'Be plain good son, and honest in thy drift.

Riddling confessions find but riddling shrifts.

Romeo - 'Then plainly know, my heart's dear love is set

On the fair daughter of rich Capulet

As mine on hers; so hers is set on mine

And all combined, save what thou must combine

By Holy marriage.....

Fri. 'Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here

Is Rosaline thou whom didst love so dear

So, soon forsaken: young men's love, then, lies

Not truly in their hearts but in their eyes

Jesu Maria, what a dear of brine

Hath wash'd thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline... ACT. II Scene III

Each and every dramatist ever since Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, has had his own way of upstaging this tragedy. Juliet's nurse and Friar Lawrence have been cast in stellar roles along with Rosaline though they are not in the main character group.

Few characters have been acted so often with much prominence and few plays staged so often like Romeo and Juliet. In this play, Rosaline is a 'lurking shadow' branded as a bawdy wench - a character which I still insist should not have been. It served no purpose unless the Bard was convinced to dot the street-scenes with wenches like Rosaline who walked them aimlessly.

Probably Romeo who was not looking out for his Juliet at that point, became an easy prey for her. Rosaline in Royal Ballet's Romeo and Juliet is outstanding though she appears briefly with Romeo but passionate, lustful and beautiful.

Many composers were fascinated by Rosaline. It was stated somewhere that when Hector Berlioze wrote the score for an extended Romeo et Juliet symphony, he included a short symphony for Rosaline and so did Tchaikovsky in 1880 for his Romeo and Juliet fantasy.

This play had also been the subject for many elaborate ballets. In performance, Romeo and Juliet took lead from the very start and continue to do so from 1679. The sequence of revivals continue and the last on record is Los Angeles production where they used swastikas and stars of David to suggest a wider racial question.

Month-long exhibition by young artists

The Thambapanni Restaurant is the venue of the budding artists Sathsara Illangasingha and Sujatha Wanamali's one-month-long joint exhibition of paintings from November 26 to December 26.

The enthusiast of colour paintings would have the opportunity to view these paintings and also to purchase them if they so wish.

Sathsara Illangasingha (28) who hails from Padukka is an undergraduate of the Visual Arts faculty at the Visual and Performing Arts University has participated in a number of group exhibitions during 2004. His art works were exhibited at the Art Festival held at the Anuradhapura District Cultural Centre, National Art Gallery 'With the Other' and the J.D.A. Gallery, Horton Place he exhibited temple paintings.

This year he displayed his work at the 'Sculptors and Painters' organised by the George Keyt Foundation and held at the Lionel Wendt Art Gallery, at the National Art Gallery, State Art Festival and also presented in art work at the Serendib Gallery in Australia.

The exhibited painting named 'My life' January 2002 at the Solo Exhibition at the National Art Gallery, in June 2002 at the Anuradhapura District Cultural Centre, 'Images' in 2003 at the Public Library, Colombo and 'Seduction' in 2005 at the Lionel Wendt Art Gallery, Colombo.

Illangasingha told the 'Daily News' his fifth exhibition includes paintings and drawings. "In the contemporary trading economic milieu precise price has been marked for both the good and the bad. The paintings depict how we think, aspire, hope and act in such surroundings. I have painted what is felt by me what is sensitive".

Sujatha Wanamali who had taken part in exhibitions in 1988, and 1989 at the national Art Gallery, Colombo participated once more at the exhibition held at the Lionel Wendt Art Gallery in 1993.

Her present work depicts the flowers, the People and the Gods of Sri Lanka, using muted tones and shades, playing with light and shade to enhance the beauty of nature. Her paintings embodied the inner essence of the objects, she chose to portray, bringing a haunting quality to her work.

The exhibition of paintings and drawings will be at both the Upstairs and Downstairs Galleries at the Thambapanni Restaurant, Duplication Road, Colombo 3.

(Wiruma)

Music of Masters sung by Cantata Singers

Asanka Perera will be introduced by the Cantata Singers in his debut as a Conductor in Alma Dei Creatoris by Mozart. Cantata Singers in grateful thanks to praiseworthy singers in the choir is launching pleasant individual voices as soloists. This is a testimony of their zealous support given to the choir. It is also to declare the pleasing quality of their voices and the ability with which they could use it.

Confidence is the keynote for novices.

The main soloists will be Erico Perera, Asitha Tennekoon, Dushy Perera and Shamini Wickramanayake. The other voices in unpretentious debuts are Enoka Corea (Alto), Shanelle Fernando (Soprano), Akram Drahaman and Viranga Wickramaratne as 'harmonious contributors in duets and quartets. These signers will be supported by versatile accompanists Premila Perinpanayagam (organ) and Nuwan Senaratne (piano).

Telemann's musical adoption of Psalm 117 has been accepted as a remarkable attempt to explore a simpler (or as some say a less ponderous) baroque exposition of that era. However, the decorative grandeur has been sustained and affords the voice a facility to sing with clarity and capability which otherwise would have required a complicated technique. The importance is to interpret the incomparable vocal music of Bach and Handel in a simpler style.

Alma Dei Creatoris by Mozart is an example of the style Mozart preferred to adopt in writing his Masonic Music which is different to his religious motets, arias, masses and operas.

This work is a meditative combination of words and music, humble in expression yet bringing out in plaintive tones the sentiments in a person's soul. Dushy Perera (Soprano) is the soloist with Enoka Corea (Alto) and Akram Drahaman (Tenor) adding the necessary musical support.

The major work is a collection of dramatic arias and choruses from the music of Mendelssohn. The prowess with which he meaningfully enriches biblical words from Psalms and the gospels for example is extraordinary.

The elaborate musical structure of each aria or chorus manipulated through the cleverness of changes in key to present expression is unimaginable. The different words of supplication, propitiation, repentance and salvation are sincerely expressed.

Music of Masters will be sung by Cantata Singers on November 26th at 7.00 p.m. in the Ladies College Chapel. Entrance is by programme available at the gate.