Mr. Richard Austin
Lecture: Poetry as Prayer
Wednesday, 12 March 2014
3:30辫.尘.鈥�5:00辫.尘.
Palm Court, Mundelein Center
Lake Shore Campus, LUC
Performance: Back to Beauty's Giver - Gerard Manley Hopkins
Thursday, 13 March 2014
7:00辫.尘.鈥�8:30辫.尘.
Palm Court, Mundelein Center
Lake Shore Campus, LUC
These events are open to the public. All are welcome to attend!
The Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage was fortunate to be able to bring to campus the noted English actor and performer Richard Austin. Austin鈥檚 specialty is the performance of poetry, especially the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Widely acclaimed as 鈥渢he finest performer of Hopkins鈥� poetry today,鈥� Austin contributed to the Hank Center鈥檚 annual forum on Catholicism and the Arts by giving a public lecture on 鈥淧oetry as Prayer鈥� after which he staged his one-man show 鈥淏ack to Beauty鈥檚 Giver."
Trained at the East 15 Acting School in London, Richard Austin was soon on the stage鈥擡ngland, Wales, Scotland, with world tours to Asia and the Middle East鈥攁nd on television (e.g. Young Arthur in BBC TV鈥檚 The Legend of King Arthur). But he had always had a deep and intensely personal passion for the poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, and in the last two decades his chief creative endeavor has been to transmit that passion to others through his performances. He has committed all of Hopkins鈥檚 poems to memory and then crafted from them the one-man show 鈥淏ack to Beauty鈥檚 Giver,鈥� which tells the story of Hopkins鈥檚 life and spiritual progress through his poetry.
Austin has performed Hopkins鈥檚 poetry in Italy, Ireland, England, Wales, and Canada, and here in the US in Philadelphia, Dallas, Spokane, Denver and other venues. His performances of Hopkins have been extraordinarily well received. Noted Hopkins scholar Joseph Feeney, S. J., for example, writes that Hopkins鈥檚 poems 鈥渃ry out for vocal 鈥榩erformance鈥欌�� and that, having heard many performances, 鈥淩ichard Austin tops them all.鈥� Feeney goes on to add that Austin 鈥渉as spent years with these poems, tasting them, listening to them, sharing his life with them. He knows their rhythms, their sounds, their meanings.鈥� Bernadette Waterman Ward, reviewing an Austin performance in Dallas for University News, says of him: 鈥淢ore than simply providing a torrent of verbal music, Austin brought the meaning of these complex works into greater intellectual and emotional clarity.鈥� Adds Prof. Loren Wilkinson (Regent College, Vancouver, Canada), 鈥淩ichard does not simply recite the poetry: he performs it powerfully, with a trained actor鈥檚 physical and vocal skills.鈥�