Events for the week

wednesday
september 13
Across Continents and Cultures: The Art and Life of Henry Ossawa Tanner: The Dallas Museum of Art and The African American Museum in Dallas embark on an unprecedented collaboration of talents and resources to showcase a towering 19th century American painter. In many ways, Henry Ossawa Tanner traveled the opposite trajectory of many American artists - he spent most of the end of his life, rather than his formative years, in Europe, and instead of dropping his stateside identity like a hot coal, he relied on many of the family, church, and community principles he acquired to discipline his work to the end. The Dallas Museum of Art is the first to show Tanner's work this month in Dallas, with 56 paintings constituting a show called Across Continents and Cultures: The Art and Life of Henry Ossawa Tanner. Even as his autumn years came to a close in a relatively secluded European spot, Tanner was compelled to capture the Biblical scenes and family rituals of his childhood. The African American Museum follows September 16 with Henry O. Tanner: Prints, Drawings, and Watercolors. Both shows close December 31. Admission to the DMA exhibit is $1-$5. For more information call 922-1200.

The Living: There are plenty of reasons why a play that details the strange psychological adjustments required to live in the midst of a plague speak to the late 20th century American audiences, and not just because of AIDS. Listen to nationwide polls and man-on-the-street interviews, and you'll find a common theme - the loss of control in a technological, economically disadvantaged world, and the striving for little ways to regain some direction before the tide overtakes you. These are the kinds of issues the citizens of 1665 London had to face as they watched folks drop like flies from the bubonic plague. The Gryphon Players present the Southerwestern premiere of Antony Clarvoe's The Living, a drama about the 17th century European plague years which explores what happens when community politics must be based on mortality, not tradition. Performances of The Living happen Wednesday-Saturday at 8 p.m., with Sunday matinees September 17 & 24 at 4 p.m. in the Hickory Street Annex Theatre. Tickets are $10-$14. Call 526-1158.