The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • G3

G3 TuesdayArts FRAME BY FRAME UNEARTHING HIDDEN TREASURES IN THE COLLECTIONS OF NEW ENGLAND MUSEUMS A foot, poetic in its singularity It doesn't belong to anything, or anyone. We don't know who made it. We don't know which body it once belonged to. Without doubt, it's a very beautiful foot. a sense "rhyme" if only with the foot on the other leg.

Part of what makes this 16th-century marble fragment from Italy at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum so arresting is that it doesn't rhyme with anything. It stands on a cabinet in the soon-to-be-reinstalled Raphael Room, all alone. It is positioned on an eight-sided plinth at about head height. (That in itself is quite startling: a foot at head height? You could almost put it in your mouth, where feet most certainly don't belong). It is, I am trying to say, singular.

It doesn't belong to anything, or anyone. We don't know who made it. We don't know which body it once belonged to. The museum could tell me nothing about where it came from or how it By Sebastian Smee GLOBE STAFF Among the many memora-ble exchanges in the 1985 film "Out of Africa" is one about the poetic possibilities of the human foot. Other body parts lips, eyes, hands, face, hair, breasts, legs, arms, and even knees all have poems celebrating their manifold virtues, says Denys Finch Hatton, the fiendishly handsome, beguilingly free-spirited character played by Robert Redford.

"But not one verse for the poor foot." His explanation for this sorry state of affairs "there's nothing to rhyme it with" doesn't cut it with Karen Blixen, the Danish writer at whose farm Finch Hatton is an unexpected guest. (She is played, of course, by Meryl Streep). "Put," she offers. "It's not a noun," objects Finch Hatton. "Doesn't matter," retorts Blixen: "Along he came and he did put Upon my farm his clumsy foot." Touche.

Rhyming, of course, is not such a problem in art, and there are many more memorable feet in the history of art than in poetry. Among my favorites are the bare feet of the beggar girl in Manet's "The Old Musician" at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and the two exposed feet of the sleeping model in Lucian Freud's "Annabel Sleeping." But, of course, when feet are still connected to a human body, they do in came into the collection. Without doubt, it's a very beautiful foot. Probably a child's, possibly a woman's. Surely not a man's.

The side visible here, in its own, quietly tantalizing way, seems to sit off the ground slightly more than it should. The little toe, meanwhile, is gorgeously bunched, like a little piggy wishing he was already all the way home. But the rest of the foot is elegant, beautifully proportioned, splendidly naked, and tremendously proud of itself, I feel. Inviolate. It doesn't ask to be shod, or sandaled, or otherwise made to rhyme or fit in with anything else.

It's afoot-for-foot's sake. Sebastian Smee can be reached at ssmeeglobe.com. DOYLE Sleeping Weazel works confront identity NEW YORK Auctioneers Appraisers of America's Finest Estates Collections Boston Consignment Day, March 18 Doyle New York's Specialists will evaluate your Jewelry, Art and other property for upcoming auctions in New York. We invite you to contact us for a private auction evaluation of a single object or an entire collection. Kathryn M.

Craig, Boston Representative 617-999-8254, BostonDoyle.com religious icon. But as Bark struggles with the play's stretch to connect his story to Prospero in "The Tempest," the play explodes into a conversation between Bark and Snodgrass about love, loss, death, and truth. This may sound a little twee, but in the hands of longtime teacher and playwright Snodgrass, it shifts almost effortlessly from hilarious to heartbreaking, with more than a few surprises along the way. The third piece, "Jazz 'n Class" is a tour de force solo performance by actress-playwright and teacher Robbie McCauley. Structured as a kind of memoir-conversation, "Jazz 'n Class" traces McCauley's place in her life and love of her daughter through her relationship with music.

McCauley doesn't just tell a story, though. Her body becomes a series of musical notes: A shift of her hips, a flip of her hand, a turn of her fingers all sound notes of joy and rage. We feel the richness and depth of McCauley's connection to music and black culture in every word, move, pause, breath, creating a hypnotic rhythm section she says is "both remembered and improvised." As she reconciles her own memories and the soundtrack of her life with the different choices her daughter has made, a final image projected on the wall becomes a breathtaking opportunity for her to step through the divide between jazz and classical music and find the place where they connect. "Badass" is a refreshing evening of exciting new work. Terry Byrne can bereached at trbyrne aol.com.

By Terry Byrne GLOBE CORRESPONDENT Once again, Sleeping Weazel presents some of the most unexpected and entertaining evenings of theater in town. "Badass," a trio of poetry and plays, running at the Boston Playwrights' Theatre through March 14, brings together an eclectic group of women artist-performers Magdalena Gomez, Kate Snodgrass, and Robbie McCauley for new works that lift the spirit and touch the heart. The three pieces aren't built around a common theme "Badass" covers a lot of territory but they share the notion of identity and the ways we, and others, attach labels that are limiting and misleading. Gomez opens the evening with a solo presentation of "Shameless to the a series of poems that manage to weave in a variety of cultures and characters. Although she delivers her poetry from behind a music stand, her facial expressions are extraordinarily elastic and her command of a variety of accents and idioms adds another level of passion to her words.

Gomez's strident calls for justice are leavened by hilarious bits of humorous defiance. The climax of her poems comes with an embrace of a series of insulting names she delightfully "disem-vowels," to remove their sting. "The Tempest (or Bark's Dream)" is a play that opens with actor Steven Barkhim-er (Bark) in a hospital bed. He speaks poetically about the dream he had when he died in a medical emergency, while Kate Snodgrass hovers over him in the guise of a DAVID MARSHALL Robbie McCauley's "Jazz 'n Class" is her solo performance for "Badass" at the Boston Playwrights' Theatre. STAGE REVIEW Diamond Ring, Ap.

1 1 .65 carats, circa 1920. 7 t. BADASS A festival of new work, including "Shameless to the Bone!" by Magdalena Gomez, "The Tempest (or Bark's Dream)" by Kate Snodgrass and "Jazz 'n Class" by Robbie McCauley. Presented by Sleeping Weazel At: Boston Playwrights' Theatre, through March 14. Tickets: $25.

www.sleepingweazel.com DOYLE NEW YORK 175 87TH STREET NEW YORK, NY 10128 DOYLE.COM.