by Janet Clement
Coastal Journal contributor

DAMARISCOTTA — John Farrell’s recitation of T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets” has all the richness of red velvet and then some. The performance, a Heartwood Regional Theater Company offering, ran for just two evenings last week at the Skidompha Library in Damariscotta.

The fortunate 40 in the audience each evening listened to what many consider the British Nobel Laureate’s last and greatest work, the culmination of his life as a poet. A set of four separate but thematically intertwined poems – “Burnt Norton,” “East Coker,” “The Dry Salvages,” and “Little Gidding” – the quartets have 1,000 lines and 7,000 words. This length compares to the parts of “Hamlet” or “King Lear” in Shakespeare’s plays, but without other actors, scene changes and visual and verbal cues.

by L. Jaye Bell
Coastal Journal contributor 

DAMARISCOTTA — The temperatures were burning and the tunes were smokin’ hot, and yet folks were dancing as if they didn’t notice the heat. Blues are blues, so when the stage is set for the array of talent that graced it at last Saturday’s DamBluesFest and Pub Crawl at Round Top Farm, folks truly don’t mind mixing a little sweat into their boogie. 

Comparatively speaking, if the North Atlantic Blues Festival (NABF) is a Pow Wow, then the DamBluesFest is more of an intimate family reunion. Organizer Paul “Paulewog” Sidelinger was inspired by Paul Benjamin’s example in starting the NABF. Benjamin is here too, but he’s far more relaxed as he visits with Victor Wainwright, J.P. Soars, and Damon Fowler as the band pulls up in their overloaded van. 

MacBeth (played by Rob Cameron) wrestles with his conscience and desire for power, as the three witches, played by Brittany Cook, Allison McCall and Molly Bryant Roberts, hover ominously in the background. This open-air Fenix Theatre Company production of MacBeth, sponsored by Bowdoin College, will be repeated July 26, August 2, and August 9 on the Bowdoin College Quad. Admission is free. by Barbara Duff
Coastal Journal staff

BRUNSWICK — Fenix Theatre Founder and Artistic Director, Bryant Mason dubbed the Bowdoin College Quad the “new cultural epicenter of Brunswick” on Thursday, July 19 during his introductory remarks for the opening night of “The Tragedy of MacBeth.” The majestic terraced steps, stately columns and classical sculpture of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art building make a perfect outdoor stage set for Shakespearean drama. Admission is free and three more performances of the cleverly abridged, 70-minute long version of MacBeth will take place on consecutive Thursdays – July 26, August 2, and August 9 at 6 p.m.

Founded five years ago, this fledgling acting troupe started with outdoor performances in Portland's Deering Oaks Park. Past repertoire has included “Two Gentlemen of Verona,” “Love's Labor Lost,” and “Waiting for Godot.” The Portland-based theater company is committed to performing in open-air settings with only the most minimal props and very simple costumes. For MacBeth, all costumes are white. Props amount to a few daggers and cleavers as well as several dramatically swathed and swirled lengths of diaphanous blood-red fabric that appear as a visual motif of death, doom, deception and dastardliness throughout the narrative.