“Shakespeare, Music, Love — & How You Can Like Yourself”: Special Matinee Performance

What is Shakespeare’s bounding, puzzling 1596 comedy, The Taming of the Shrew, really about? You can have the pleasure of finding out at the Special Dramatic and Musical Matinee on Sunday, July 15, 2:30 pm at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, 141 Greene Street in SoHo. You will also see how a problem people have every day — about severity and good nature — is solved in a beautiful suite by the composer Telemann. —And, as you are delighted, swept by dramatic scenes and music, you will be learning what every person in America is thirsting to know: “How can I like myself — really?”

Eli Siegel, the founder of Aesthetic Realism, showed that what will have us like ourselves at last — in conversations, in our thoughts as we look in the mirror, in an embrace — is the same thing that makes for art: “All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.”

Part 1 is a dramatic presentation of Eli Siegel’s great 1951 lecture, “Aesthetic Realism and Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew” with rollicking scenes from the play. In it, the beauty of Shakespeare’s wild comedy, and what goes on between Petruchio and Katherina is explained. With tremendous compassion, Mr. Siegel comprehends what no other critic saw: Katherina is deeply hoping to meet someone who will make her feel the world deserves her respect! Petruchio meets this hope — in the most surprising, unexpected and often hilarious ways — and this is why she comes to love him. Mr. Siegel says:

Katherina is the energy in woman looking for a means of showing itself. Because she hasn’t found it yet, she is in an ill mood. She represents the desire in ourselves to come to a repose by meeting an energy that we respect….Once we can see the world as beautiful, we shall be in a very fortunate position of not wanting to use our energy in the field of anger in such a manner that we are displeased with ourselves.

In the cast are: Anne Fielding, Carrie Wilson, Derek Mali, Bennett Cooperman, Carol McCluer, Timothy Lynch and Arnold Perey. Carrie Wilson, who plays Katherina , says:

As an actress and woman, I love Eli Siegel’s understanding of Shakespeare’s play and this wonderful character. The way he sees why Katherina is angry, is so kind and respectful of the deepest hopes of women. I feel that every person who sees this great matinee will leave happier and know more clearly, as our title says, ‘How you can like yourself!’

Part 2 will be “Severity & Good Nature in Telemann’s Suite in A Minor,” a performance with comments by Barbara Allen (flute) and Edward Green (piano), who say:

We see this music as centrally about one of the biggest problems people have: How can we make sense of our severest thoughts and our desire to be good-natured?…Every movement of this Telemann suite shows there is a beautiful answer which Aesthetic Realism makes clear. Opposites don’t have to fight!

For information and reservations contact the not for profit Aesthetic Realism Foundation at (212) 777-4490 or AestheticRealism.org Suggested contribution is $10.00.