T.S. Eliot’s poem “Portrait of a Lady” (1915): a multi-media performance-reading

Reservations are required: rsvp@primolevicenter.org (specify the program title)

In June 2025,  Yves Seban presented a reading of James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake at Centro Primo Levi in the original English text and in the Italian translation by Italian poet Luigi Schenone. A studio recording was made for the CPL Archives, and it is available here. (Copyright pending.)

This multi-media performance-reading of T.S. Eliot’s poem “Portrait of a Lady” (1915), is his second presentation of Yves Seban at Bookhouse with director Quinn Kinsella, and production coordinator Naila Hassan.

Seban’s passion for Japanese art and literature, led him to incorporate masks and Noh theater into this presentation, before he discovered that T.S. Eliot explicitly requested that “the action should be stylized as in the Noh drama—see Ezra Pound’s book and Yeats’ preface and notes to The Hawk’s Well. The characters ought to wear masks.” 

The Music Room by Satyajit Ray (Bengali: জলসাঘর Jalsāghar, lit. ’The Music Room’)

Satyajit Ray’s musical drama, from 1958, is a rapturous treasure trove of Indian classical music and dance—and a tale of the reckless passion that they can inspire. Biswambhar Roy (Chhabi Biswas), the hereditary landlord of a grand estate, has what his wife, Mahamaya (Padmadevi), calls “a dangerous addiction” to music. He neglects his business and spends himself into penury by holding private concerts with celebrated musicians in his home. The drama, unfolding in flashbacks, shows the tragic wreckage that results from his efforts to cultivate a similar love of music in his young son, Khoka (Pinaki Sengupta). Ray tells the story with flourishes of aestheticism—involving lavish architectural and ornamental detail—and hieratically refined performances that contrast ironically with the degradation resulting from Biswambhar’s enthusiasm. The nine-minute-long climactic sequence features a great dancer (Roshan Kumari), performing to live accompaniment, who’s filmed largely from a high angle, in front of a huge mirror that redoubles the action; it’s uncomplicated yet visionary. Such ecstasies, alongside the family’s ruin, present art as a disturbing, necessary luxury. (Richard Brody, The New Yorker)

Image: Vincent van Gogh, Japonaiserie, (after an illustration by Keisai Eisen), oil on canvas, background revisited by AI, 1887