This week’s `Cultural Diary’ brings you details about several other fascinating events happening in the city. Take your pick of stage plays, exhibitions, or dance performance and add colour to your routine life. You can make merry and enjoy the adventures or sit back, relax and enjoy a movie of your choice. Make a little space to kick into high gear amid the busy work schedules to enjoy the exciting events happening at venues around the city. If there is an event you would like others to know, drop an email to eventcalendar@ymail.com or call us on 011 2429652. Have a pleasant week.

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Washington (1939) will be screened on Sep-tember 20 at 6pm at the American Centre, No 44, Galle Road, Colom-bo 03. (Running Time: 130 minutes)

Political heavy-weights decide that Jefferson Smith (James Stewart), an obscure scout-master in a small town, would be the perfect dupe to fill a vacant U.S. Sen-ate chair. Surely this naive bumpkin can be easily con-trolled by the sen-ior senator (Claude Rains) from his state, a respectable and corrupted career politician. Director Frank Capra fills the movie with Smith’s wide-eyed wonder at the glories of Washington, all of which ring false for his cynical secretary (Jean Arthur), who doesn’t believe for a minute this rube could be for real. But he is. Capra was repeating the formula of a previous film, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, but this one is even sharper; Stewart and Arthur are brilliant, and the former cowboy star Harry Carey lends a warm presence to the role of the vice president. Bright, funny, and beautifully paced, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is Capra’s ode to the power of innocence—an idea so potent that present-day audi-ences may find themselves wishing for a new Mr. Smith in Congress.

Seating is limited and is first-come, first-served.

Mark Amerasinghe pre-sents a monodrama `Look Back in Love’, an adaptation of his translation of Jean Cocteau’s original script of the black and white French film Orphée (screened in 1950) on September 23 at 6.30 pm at the Alliance Française de Kandy.

According to Grecian leg-end, Orpheus followed his recently dead wife, Eury-dice, to the other world and obtained her release on one strict condition. He must not turn back, to take even a fleeting glimpse of his belov-ed, until they were both safely home. Unfortunately, Orpheus did look back and he lost Eurydice for ever-more.

In Cocteau’s modern ver-sion, while the young lovers finally rejoin each other to live happily ever after in this world, Orpheus is a cele-brated poet, [some Greek sources consider Orpheus both the leading poet and musician of his time] hated by the avant-garde and femi-nists of the day; and Other World characters, not men-tioned in the original leg-end, are introduced.

Chief among these are an agent of Death, the Princess, who loves Orpheus, her chief aid, Heurtebise, in love with Eurydice and a young poet, Cegeste, who writes incomprehensible poetry, is the favourite of the avant-garde and is being promoted by them as challenger to Orpheus. He has been recently recruited into the service of the Princess.

The sorceress-like Princess, accompanied by her aides, flits in and out of this world through solid mirrors, in pursuit of the handsome Orpheus who, under a spell woven by the Princess, is mesmerised by her ethereal beauty, until realising the futility of their forbidden love, she releases him to rejoin his beloved wife; while she and Heurtebise, for transgressing the laws of the Spirit World, are banished, from an eternal existence in their world, into oblivion.

Cocteau gives a distinct 1950’s flavour to this ancient tale by introducing ‘talking’ cars, leather-jacketed assas-sins on high-speed motorcycles, revolvers and machine guns. Throughout the production, there prevails an over-arching manipulation of space-time and an all-pervading atmosphere of mystery and magic - a modern Wonder-land!

‘Chaos at the Vicarage’ (See How They Run) - a comedy directed by Trudy Herft and produced by Jith Pieris will take stage on September 23, 24 and 25 at 7pm at the Lionel Wendt Theatre, Colombo 7. Set in the 1940’s, this British comedy by Philip King is bound to keep you in fits of laughter!

The cast of the play is made up with Rehan Almeida, Michelle Herft, Dulika Jayamana, Carleen de Fry Devraj, Surani Gomez, Kanishka Her-ath, Malik Hannan, Shehan Wijemane and Gehan Cooray. The play is presented by Creative Arts Foundation and the box office is available at the Lionel Wendt.

Diotima, an exceptional string quartet from France on tour in Asia, will be present in Sri Lanka for a unique concert in the Galle Face Hotel on September 25 at 6pm.

Quatuor Diotima, whose name pays homage to the string quartet by Luigi Nono: “Fragmente Stille, an Diotima”, plays contemporary works as well as late 20th century classics through traditional string quartet repertoire.

Founded by graduates of the Paris and Lyon Conservatoires, Quatuor Diotima received the first prize at the London String Quartet Competi-tion in the year 2000. The same year, they began a two-year residency at the European Centre for Chamber Music.

Quatuor Diotima’s repertoire ranges from Haydn to the composers of our time, with a particular focus on the Classical period, French Roman-ticism, the early Twentieth Century, and a selection of major works from the last 50 years.

The programme they will perform at the Galle Face Hotel on Septem-ber 25 is composed by the Quartet n°7 of Franz Shubert, the String Quartet of Claude Debussy and “From my life”, written by the Czech composer Bedrich Smetana.

This unique concert in Colombo is brought forth under the special partnership between the Galle Face Hotel and the Alliance Française de Kotte and the active support of Alcatel Lucent, Alstom, the Embassy of France, the Région Centre and the Institut Français of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs from France. Entrance to the event is free. Invitations and programs are available at AF de Kotte, 139, Jawatta Road, Colombo 5.

>> Chaos at the Vicarage

>> ‘Quatuor Diotima’ in concert

September

19 >> Art exhibition by Chaminda Gamage

An art Exhibition by Chaminda Gamage will be held till September 30 at the Barefoot Gallery, 704, Galle Road, Colom-bo 3. Over 30 latest paintings by Chamin-da have been selected for this exhibition.Chaminda Gamage begins to show an interest in paintings from his childhood. From the early 90’s, he was being recog-nized as an upcoming artist in the arts arena. Since then, his dedication had driven him for numerous awards; one was the State Award for the Most Outstand-ing Painter of the Year -1996.

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Act Before You Think is the exciting Theatre-Games event hosted by Mind Adventures Theatre Company. Returning on the heels of its resounding success last year, Season 2 promises to be funnier, quirkier and more challenging for both participants and audiences alike.

Teams can sign-up up now by emailing daytripperinfo@gmail.com. We require teams of four and one reserve, no age limits, no criteria! The event will take place until October 20 at Warehouse Project Maradana.

>> Act Before You Think Season 2

Walks of Life - photo exhibition by Nadya Tissera will be held until October 14 at the American Center, No 44, Galle Road, Colombo 3.

>> Walks of Life

‘A return to Sri Lanka’ - images of Sri Lanka from British Collections (1640-1900) will be held until September 28 at Lionel Wendt Gallery. This is a travelling exhibition produced by the British Library and the British Council.

>> ‘A Return to Sri Lanka’

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An exhibition of photographs organised by HSBC will be held from September 22 to 24 at the Harold Pieris Gallery, Colombo 7.

>> HSBC photographic exhibition

>> LC PromsA concert by the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka presents `LC

Proms’ a scintillating programme of light classical, popular musicals, film themes and Latin American orchestral renderings. The programme will be conducted by Ajit Abeysekera and will take place on September 24 at 7 pm at Mabel Simon Hall, Ladies’ College. The event is organ-ised in aid of the Ladies’ College OGA Trust Fund for Care and Sup-port. The Box Plan is available at the school office.

This month’s movie theme at the American Centre is: Fight the Power

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

The youth movie, `Holes’ (2003) will be screened at the American Centre on September 24 at 3.30pm. A wrongfully convicted boy is sent to a brutal desert detention camp where he joins the job of digging holes for some mysterious reason. (Running Time: 117 min-utes)

Holes

The movie, En

Pleine Tempête (2000) by Wolf-gang Petersen will be screened on Tuesday, Septem-ber 20 at 3pm and Wednesday, Sep-tember 21 at 6.30pm at Alliance Française de Colombo, 11, Barnes Place, Colombo 07. (Duration - 130 minutes)

Billy Tyne is a sword-fishing-boat captain out of Gloucester, highly competitive and stung by a string of poor outings. His crew is hardly back in port when he tells them he’s going out again, even though it’s October and the weather can turn ugly. Five join him: the young Bobby, newly in love; Murph , a devoted father recently divorced; Sully, a guy Murph despises; Bugsy, who’s finally met a woman who likes him; and Alfred, a quiet Jamaican. They catch little, so they sail east, with Tyne ignoring storm warnings behind him. Finally, the fish bite, but the ice machine fails. Should they head home through the storm of the century, or wait it out and lose their catch?

The movie is for general viewing and is subtitled in English.

En Pleine Tempête

Un barrage contre le pacifique by Rithy Panh (2007) will be screened on September 23 at 6pm at AF de Kotte, 139, Jawatta Road, Colombo 05.

Indochina, 1931 - In the Gulf of Siam, a middle-aged mother is strug-gling to get by with her two children, Joseph and Suzanne, who are 20 and 16 respec-tively. She has invested her entire fortune in a piece of land which is regularly flooded and therefore impossible to culti-vate. Her only hope is to build a sea wall to keep the waters at bay, and she devotes herself to this mad scheme. When Suzanne attracts the attentions of Monsieur Jo, the son of a rich businessman, the fam-ily sees an opportunity to improve their lot. Stars: Isabelle Huppert, Gaspard Ulliel, Astrid Berges-Fris-beynd movies are subtitled in English.

Un barrage contre le pacifique

Nicolai II (part 1) will be screened on September 21 at the Russian Cultural Center Cinema Hall, No10, Independence Avenue, Colombo 07 at 6 pm.

Entrance to watch this movie is free and all films are subtitled in English.

Nicolai II (part 1)

“The Coronation”

The Princess Alice. The Royal Wedding

Introduction of a gold piece - a 10-Ruble coin - the hardest currency in the world up to WWI

Nicolai II family

Leo Tolstoy

Lenin in London

Movie highlights

September

23 >> Look Back in Love

RUWANTHI ABEYAKOON