AUTHOR/ARTIST KAHLIL GIBRAN COMES ALIVE WITH  MICHEL EL-ASHKAR  By Jacki Skeels

        
Khalil Gibran           Michel Ashkar 

Actor and Playwright Michel El-Ashkar brought to life the late Lebanese artist and poet Kahlil Gibran in a stirring two-act dramatic presentation for a full house at Murphy Recital Hall, Saturday night, November 8, 2003 at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California during a Lebanese Ladies Cultural Society fundraiser for orphans in Lebanon. 

Charitable patrons, government officials, movie industry producers, professional musicians and lovers of Gibran’s literature were completely captivated by Michel El-Ashkar’s convincing embodiment of Kahlil Gibran’s life on this 120^th year anniversary of Gibran’s birth in North Lebanon.  The 8 PM theatrical performance followed a gracious outdoor Lebanese dinner reception under balmy, clear skies that set the magical mood of the evening.  Before taking the stage, proclamations designating November 8, 2003 as “Michel El-Ashkar Day” were presented to the Playwright and Actor, Michel El-Ashkar, on behalf of the mayors of Los Angeles and Hawthorne, California USA.

Gibran--the subject of this one-man show--is well known in the western world and in the Middle East and his book The Prophet has been translated into 54 languages.  Gibran was the first Arab-American to reach international literary prominence and his writings continue to have intergenerational, universal appeal. 

The portrayal of Kahlil Gibran’s life and work by Dramatist Michel El-Ashkar revealed such a union of spirit between Gibran, Lebanese-American poet and El-Ashkar, Lebanese-American performer that the essence of Gibran’s deep understanding of life and its mystical aspects that reach far beyond ordinary understanding flowed seamlessly from Gibran’s heart into the actor’s, leaving an impression with the audience during the closing minutes of the play that Gibran’s great mantel as a spiritual mentor and guide had fallen on El-Ashkar’s shoulders as they watched, earmarking him to carry Gibran’s celestial enlightenment to life’s wanderers in this millennium as his destiny that had been birthed in the eternal heart of God. 

BEHIND THE CURTAIN
Before going on stage in Boston, London, the Washington, DC area and now Los Angeles with his theatrical production, A Child of Life, Michel El-Ashkar spent years researching Kahlil Gibran’s experiences in Lebanon, France and the eastern USA and Gibran’s volume of work as a poet and artist.  This thorough, extensive research was dramatized in such a well-paced, captivating way, Saturday night, that theatergoers felt--as they were compelled to rise to their feet at the play’s close--as if they had shared an ennobling experience that was one of life’s rarest and finest moments.

ACT 1
El-Ashkar effectively brought Gibran’s world to the stage in a poignant two-act dramatic interpretation which chronicled many of the highlights of Gibran’s life and placed emphasis upon the pivotal people that crossed his path. He set in place, at the beginning of Act 1, the underpinnings of Gibran’s lifelong, platonic yet intense love for Mary Haskell, an American private school head mistress, who was a few years his senior.

To quote El-Ashkar’s portrayal of Gibran recollecting the night Gibran and Haskell first met, the actor recounted, “Despite the fact that I met so many people and spoke to them at my first art exhibit in Boston in 1904, they were intrigued by this 21-year old artist or by the culture I came from, but Mary Haskell was different; as she stood and gazed upon my artwork, discussing it with me, I was intrigued by her.  I loved talking to her as she really wanted to hear what was in my heart and kept making me reveal more by challenging me philosophically.  That was captivating me.” 

ACT 2
After 20 years of deep, abiding, platonic love and friendship, Gibran’s “beloved Mary” received the first copy in print of Gibran’s most universally familiar book, The Prophet, as a gift from him.  She responded to Gibran with an eloquently written letter which El-Ashkar delivered with such a full heart that his audience sensed that Gibran himself was before them, revealing his innermost thoughts to them with choked emotions and faltering steps. 
Gibran’s love for Mary Haskell was at the center of his highest joys and deepest pain throughout his adult years and he treasured all of her letters until he died, saying, “You still intrigue me, Mary Haskell, and your letters and words always open my heart.” 
According to Dramatist El-Ashkar, the essays in The Prophet are an extension of Kahlil Gibran and Mary Haskell’s intertwined hearts.

Both Act 1 and Act 2 conveyed well the visceral emotions of Gibran and Haskell laughing and crying in each other’s lingering yet platonic embrace in both their younger and older years.

STAGING
Theatergoers were visually brought into the New York art studio where Gibran lived during much of his adult years by the display of his artwork, authentic period furniture and period costumes as well as the actor’s effective use of realistic props as he moved about the stage, portraying several characters.  El-Ashkar transitioned smoothly between scenes while painting at his easel, restlessly fingering Arabic worry beads, drinking Arabian coffee and Lebanese arak or smoking a hubbly bubbly Turkish pipe, western pipe or cigarettes as Gibran had done.

El-Ashkar’s use of music was as effective as his staging.  As he introduced his audience to an understanding of Gibran’s unfailing devotion for Mary Haskell in Act 1, theatergoers faintly heard a qanoun, the Arab zither, artfully playing a bittersweet yet romantic piece entitled “Nocturne”.  This composition was a cut from El-Ashkar’s brother’s CD, “Chants Du Qanoun” and was recorded in Paris, France where Elie Achkar is a well-known concert performer, conductor and music promoter.

While reminiscing about their mutual love for classical music, poetry and art, El-Ashkar as Gibran made mention in Act 2 of Gibran and Haskell’s particular fondness for Beethoven’s Piano Concerto #5 as its strains softly accompanied his telling of it. 

EL-ASHKAR’S CREATIVE VISION BEYOND LIVE THEATER

Michel El-Ashkar is seriously pursuing the making of a full-length documentary film on the life of Kahlil Gibran that encompasses his (1) stage play, A Child of Life, (2) early 20th century scenes of Lebanon and the USA where Gibran lived as well as (3) selections from Gibran’s literary and artistic work

El-Ashkar is also creating a CD set of old Byzantine and Lebanese folk songs and hymns with full orchestration and a companion music video for the music that will be in both Arabic and English.  The music video will portray Lebanon’s scenic places, period Middle Eastern artwork and traditional musical instruments.

For more information on Michel El-Ashkar visit www.michelashkar.com.
To learn more about Khalil Gibran, visit http://leb.net/gibran.

Jacki Skeels

Publicist, Press Release Writer, Copy Proofreader, Former English teacher in Lebanon 
Tel. (562) 856-2238  >>  Cell (562) 301-9621 
P.O. Box 92368 Long Beach, California  90809 USA   JackiSkeels@aol.com        

French Fau Paz a Lebanese Wake-UP Call.   By Gladys Saroyan  June 2003
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/Stories/0,1413,206~11851~1449455,00.html#
Article Published: Wednesday, June 11, 2003 - 12:29:45 PM PST  Pasadena Star News

THAT the French are now mocked, ridiculed and accused of aiding and abetting murderous Arab dictators has left many a Lebanese jaw hanging in utter disbelief including my own. Not Mother France! The Lebanese people, France's former subjects, spoke its language, worshipped its heroes and studied its history as if miraculously by doing so we would become privy to a club that was limited to only the creme de la creme of Europe's elite culture.

Never mind that as hard as we strived to enter the gates of the monde Francais, we seldom succeeded beyond the roles of concierges, valets and delivery garcons. We struggled valiantly to stop rolling our R's and to consciously insert a Z into every other syllable. We named our children Jean, Pierre and Mireille. We lathered our ham sandwiches with butter; we drank milk with just a hint of cafe and we prided ourselves on not having to read subtitles when we endured a Cinema Verite flic.

While the rest of the world scrimped and saved for a lifetime trip to Mecca or Jerusalem, we went on a pilgrimage to France. We regarded their castles, which are ironically modeled after Arabic architecture, as the epitome of class and the sure proof of their magnificent eminence.
We swallowed their fashion magazines whole. To wear an unseen "made in France' tag on the back of a prohibitively priced dress elevated a whole family from mere middle-class to the upper echelon of Lebanese society.

Speaking of which, in the French steel ladder of cultural ranking, our Lebanese elites and staunch Francophiles placed certainly above femmes de chamber, but nowhere near France's exclusive definition of upper class. I was not familiar with the term Pied-Noir, until I made my own pilgrimage to France over 20 years ago. A Pied-Noir literally means black foot and refers to former subjects from Northern Africa. I entered a store, bought a bottle of water and asked the shopkeeper if this was a good brand. He said, "kif-kif.'
I didn't understand him. He insisted "kif-kif' and shook his head at my blank look. "Aren't you a pied noir?' He said. "You should understand your own language.'
"Kif-kif' turned out to be Arabic for "so-so.'

The French I learned and perfected in Lebanon did not include North African slang, and I was not raised to even suspect that my face or my French accent did not denote pure Gaul. I am Lebanese after all. Almost a Frenchy, non? Apparently not.
For the rest of the trip, I was shocked to find out that their croissants were too buttery, degoutant! Their wine, too watery, terrible! Their baguettes so darn crusty that my poor teeth got an unwanted sharpening with every bite, nom de Dieu!

And where were all these finely dressed, willowy femmes who graced our expensive imported magazines? And how about the adorable enfants? Or even the sexy French men with their famous pout? The kids I witnessed whined and threw tantrums enough to make this young woman at the time thank the stars that the prospect of having French children was close to a grand zero. The far-from-chic women I encountered schlepped heavy grocery bags up numerous flights of stairs with a look on their faces that no Lebanese woman from any social class would dare expose in public.

The French men I bumped elbows with did have a pout, but it looked permanently plastered on their surly faces. More like a sneer, really, that if, Allah forbid, it was a look adopted by Lebanese males, it would have rendered the whole Lebanese population extinct.

It was a wake-up call for me at the time, and one, I must admit, triggered by a sudden realization that if judged upon our own merit and not our wanna- be aspirations, we as Lebanese have done very well despite our gigantic political and geographical obstacles. And maybe now, thanks to Mother France's recent political faux pas, it's a wake-up call that will be heeded by all my fellow Lebanese.
Ms. Saroyan is an American Lebanese freelance writer living in Los Angeles

Why are there 2 different dates to celebrate the holiest of Christian feasts, one for the Western (Catholic) Church and another for the Eastern (Orthodox) Church and which of the two is the right one? The answer goes back to four dates in history, 325 A.D., 451 A.D., 1054 A.D., 1582 A.D. and lies in which type of religious calendar is used and its method of calculation.

In 325 A.D., the Council of Nicaea gathered all the Christian bishops and other religious leaders to resolve various church issues of the time among which, was the determination of Easter Day. There and then, it was resolved that Easter would be on the Sunday that follows the first full moon occurring after the spring equinox, March 21st, therefore, a variable date from year to year. At that time, there was no eastern or western church; there was only one church. From that year, all of Christianity started celebrating Easter on the set date, calculated in accordance with the Julian calendar that had been in effect since the days of Julius Caesar.

By the year 1582, it was concluded from a study by a Jesuit mathematician and astronomer, that the Julian religious calendar year then currently in use was in effect 11 minutes and 14 seconds longer than the actual time the earth took for its one-year rotation around the sun, consequently the then" current" March 21st date being used for the determination of Easter had drifted away from the original March 21st date that had been set in 325 A.D. because of the shifting date of the equinoxes over time and had to be corrected. The annual error of a few minutes each year had accumulated to about 10 days between 325 A.D. and 1582 A.D. It was of prime importance to correct the date as all other Christian holy days were based on the proper date of Easter, with exception to Christmas, a fixed date. That year, Pope Gregory XIII decided to lop-off 10 days from the calendar to account for the required correction, and since then, we have been on the Gregorian religious as well as civil calendar with its new method of calculation.

To get back to the different Easters, the Western (Catholic) Church and the Eastern (Orthodox) Church had gone their separate ways starting in 451 A.D. and had split apart completely in 1054 A.D. Consequently, the Papal Bull issued by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 A.D. correcting the date and adopting the new religious calendar did not apply to the Eastern Church which maintained its Old Style Julian religious calendar and continues to do so until today for its determination of Easter, hence the 2 different dates for Easter.

By now you must be intrigued in asking that since there is approximately a 10-day difference between the 2 religious calendars, how is it that the 10-day difference between the 2 Easters doesn't always apply, since during certain years they even coincide. For a detailed mathematical explanation on calendar calculations, especially if you are into algorithms go to     www.tondering.dk/claus/calendar.html