Mecca

The path to enlightenment is taken with touching innocence every night at the little Wilma Theater on Sansom Street. In the opening play of the season, The Road to Mecca, a woman passing into old age lights the way with candles, realizes that she has reached her spiritual destination and decides the time has come to blow them out. Thus does the life cycle take on meaning in Athol Fugard's treasure of a play, which stands apart from the...

It's no wonder they call it Antiques at Harvest Time in Mullica Hill. Collectors will find a bountiful array of primarily country antiques at this show, the ninth annual one, Saturday in this small village in Gloucester County. The show will be held at Harrison Township School on North Main Street but, as avid area collectors know, Mullica Hill is an antiquing mecca with 40 shops stretched out along Main Street. So antiquers who can't find what they're looking for at the show should head south on Main, where most shops will be open for business as usual.

An Iranian radio report said hundreds of Muslim pilgrims in Mecca demonstrated yesterday to protest the deaths of 402 people during last year's pilgrimage, but Saudi Arabia denounced the story as a lie. The broadcast on government-run Tehran Radio said Saudi police attacked some of the protesters, who it said were also demonstrating against Israel, the United States and the Soviet Union. The official Saudi press agency SPA quoted what it called a responsible source as saying that the Iranian report was "totally fabricated and it has no basis of truth whatsoever.

Standing outside the entrance to the Mecca (also known as the Grand Mosque), I quickly slipped off my shoes and put them in a plastic bag along with the footwear of the rest of my family. Shoes, because they track dirt and filth, are forbidden in this most sacred Muslim place. My father extended his hands to my sister and me and asked us to close our eyes. He would guide us through the porticos leading to the courtyard that houses the Kaaba, the cubic brick structure that is considered the center of Islam.

The deaths of more than 400 Muslims in front of the Grand Mosque in Mecca on July 31 arose from a simple and yet momentous disagreement. Should pilgrims during the haj behave according to the injunctions of the Koran, which they hold to be the word of God, or should they obey a cranky old cleric in Tehran? Surah ii, verse 197, of the Koran enjoins pilgrims to abstain (depending on the translation) from "abuse," "angry conversations," "contentious discussion," "violence," "lewdness.

The arrival of Athol Fugard's The Road to Mecca with - at last - Yvonne Bryceland as its radiant centerpiece is one of the signal events of the decade: a powerfully affecting performance in a major work by a playwright who is arguably the best of those writing today for the English-speaking stage. The play opened last night at the Promenade Theater. Prevented by Actors Equity from appearing in the play's world premiere at the Yale Repertory Theater in New Haven, Conn., in 1984, Bryceland starred in the National Theater of Great Britain production two years later, winning the Olivier Award as best actress of the London season.

This summer, for the first time in 56 years, the folks in the Chester County hamlet of Jennersville will not hear the twang of distant country music from their porches. The music is on hold because Sunset Park, a country mecca for generations, will be closed for the season. When more than two feet of snow hit the area last month, the aluminum roof over Sunset Park's autograph-signing area and part of its main outdoor seating collapsed. The roof now covers most of the front-row seats.

Name some great centers of culture. Paris. Rome. Venice. Woodbury. Woodbury? Seems out of place among world-renowned cities that feature centuries-old art and historic cathedrals. But 10 Woodbury residents still hope to turn their city into a mecca for culture - on a far smaller scale - in Gloucester County. They recently formed the Woodbury Council for Art and Performances, an organization designed to sponsor concerts, plays and other cultural events for Woodbury and the rest of Gloucester County.

The plays of South African writer Athol Fugard typically deal with the racial problems of his native land. They also focus primarily on male characters, with women in supporting roles. In The Road to Mecca, race is dealt with only tangentially, and the central characters are two women. The play proves that Fugard does not need the emotionally charged issue of apartheid to energize his imagination and that he can create women who are as vivid as his men. The strong characters and nonracial focus of this forceful play could make it Fugard's most-produced work in this country.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini said yesterday that Iran held the United States responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Iranian pilgrims last week in the Muslim holy city of Mecca and warned that it would retaliate "at an opportune time," Tehran Radio reported. "We have placed these crimes to the account of the U.S. and we shall demand repayment and take revenge for the blood of the children of Abraham," said Iran's 86-year-old spiritual leader. Iran also announced that its Revolutionary Guards would hold three days of naval maneuvers, code-named "Martyrdom," in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman and warned all foreign ships and planes to stay out of Iranian territorial waters and airspace in those regions as of midnight (4:30 p.m. Philadelphia time)

The ball strike rang pure. A player of my, um, caliber knows that sweet "thwack" because I hear it but a handful of times every round. Sure enough, I found the last of my Top-Flite XLs soaring against a brilliant blue Scottish sky high above the Coffins, a cluster of mean-spirited pot bunkers on the par 4, 388-yard 13th hole at the Old Course St. Andrews Links. In the distance, colorful hang gliders zigzagged over the North Sea in schizophrenic gales that have driven golfers mad for more than 600 years.

NEW YORK - To honor the 80th birthday of celebrated South African playwright Athol Fugard, The Road to Mecca , a play he wrote in the mid-'80s, opened Tuesday night for the first time on Broadway. We have many reasons to celebrate Fugard - foremost, his creation of exceptional theater in his unswerving march against the official racism of South African apartheid - but The Road to Mecca is not among them. It's a ho-hum play with a dull first act, as tedious as cleaning up the piles on your desk, and with a second act that fails to deliver even the satisfaction of at least a clean desktop.

A prepared foods clerk at Whole Foods Market, the natural food supermarket chain that made its reputation on taking the high road in diversity, employment engagement, and high-quality food, said managers at an area Whole Foods store fired him because he is Muslim. "I guess they thought I was some kind of extreme guy, but everybody loved me," said Glenn Mack, 24, of Philadelphia's Overbrook section, who was fired in February. " "While we don't give out details about current or former team members, we can say that we deny such allegations, we value and celebrate diversity, and we have a zero-tolerance discrimination policy," said Whole Foods spokeswoman Robin W. Rehfield.

Dear Sam: This will be the last letter I write you. I don't think they have newspapers where you are. I first wrote you nearly 10 years ago on that cloudless blue Tuesday morning when 19 men under your command hijacked four airliners. They crashed two into the towers of the World Trade Center, one into the side of the Pentagon, and the last into a field near Shanksville, Pa. Nearly 3,000 people died that day, and I remember being numb with the weight of it all. I didn't even know your name at the time, so I addressed myself to a monster, a beast, a bastard - which, it turns out, was an accurate salutation.

A "wonderland of eternal spring" blossomed in Cherry Hill on Oct. 11, 1961. Ballyhooed as a "tropical paradise," the enclosed shopping center at the old Jaus Farm on Route 38 was among the first of its kind in America. "The Cherry Hill Mall," longtime resident Dan Cirucci recalls, "changed this region forever. " The promotional fervor (or fever) was understandable. With a snazzy array of indoor stores, acres of free parking, and "Golden Aviary" of exotic birds, the mall siphoned shoppers from downtown Camden and Philadelphia.

IN HER DEFENSE of Islam, op-ed columnist Fatimah Ali refers to the Crusades as "some of the most violent wars" in history, but that's plainly untrue. More people died in the Yellow Turban War in China and in Shaka's conquests in Africa than died in the Crusades, and I doubt anyone would consider those as violent as World War I or World War II or the Russian civil war. She also refers to "horrific crimes" committed by settlers in this country without giving any consideration of historical context.

NEW YORK - Villanova's constant term this season has been "next game," the idea of forgetting what happened in the previous contest and coming out focused on the one that follows. After yesterday's 80-76 loss to Marquette in the Big East tournament quarterfinals, that saying for the 10th-ranked Wildcats has become "next tournament. " "Your goal in the Big East tournament is not to win one or two games; you want to win the whole thing," senior co-captain Reggie Redding said.

Still reeling from the specter of table games in Pennsylvania later this year, Atlantic City gambling operators have to deal with a new threat: Casino hotels in Pennsylvania, too. Adding hotels to what now are mostly just slots parlors will essentially strip Atlantic City of its status as this region's only overnight gaming destination - and likely will further erode the Shore town's already diminishing revenue. "Overnight gamers are more valuable as customers, vs. day-trippers," said Harvey Perkins of Spectrum Gaming Group L.L.C.

A Philadelphia developer is wrapping up a deal to buy the shuttered Boyd Theater and says he intends to use the historic Chestnut Street movie palace as the anchor for a $95 million hotel-and-entertainment complex inspired by Atlantic City's Borgata, offering many of the same amenities but no gambling. Hal Wheeler of the development firm ARCWheeler said he had signed an agreement with Live Nation that would enable him to purchase the 2,350-seat theater by Nov. 25. If the sale goes through, it could provide a happy ending to the Boyd's long-running drama.

Their lives are forever changed. Once people find out about Jim Crater's place near Pottstown - and who could even imagine a spread as wild as this two-acre warren of sheds and bins and piles of stuff, stuff, stuff - they're hooked. They become zealots and plastics hoarders and, in some cases, distressing to their spouses. They begin to recycle everything. Not just newspapers, cans, bottles and jugs, the staples of most recycling programs. Here at Crater's nonprofit Recycling Services Inc., at the end of Elm Street across the Schuylkill from Pottstown, they find resting places for nearly 50 different items.