4 quartetS (de-colonized)

Bernard White performs T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets” as you’ve never seen or heard it before. Come watch as White speaks the poem, in its entirety, with an ease and effervescence that bring the words to life, out of the past and right into our modern moment. Aided only by four tennis balls, the sun setting behind him, and the birds flying above, this performance of an iconic text by a masterful storyteller is sure to enthrall and enlighten.

White, a renowned actor, screenwriter, and film director, began performing the poem in Griffith Park at sunrise two years ago. The youngest of 7, he and his family arrived from Ceylon (Sri Lanka) to Manhattan on the Queen Mary in May of 1960.  The ship passed Pier 55 (now this Little Island) and docked on this Hudson River around 42nd Street.  White now lives just west of the river in Los Angeles, California with his wife Jackie Katzman. White believes, T.S. Eliot wrote the poem, “for now, for this present moment, for the purpose of healing, for us who gather on the river adjacent to the island at the center of the world.”