FESTIVAL DIARY – DAY #3

Caroline Smart's Festival Diary: June 23, 2010

The sun is with us again and it’s a beautiful day for Festival. Okay, we’re still in jackets, scarves and gloves early in the day and in the evening but it’s not Arctic-dress mode! Today was hectic, with four productions to review (out on artSMart shortly).

The Girl in the Yellow Dress - Craig Higginson’s new play directed by Malcolm Purkey is a splendidly performed piece that starts out as a lesson on the correct use of English and then runs alongside the development of a love-hate relationship. Excellent natural performances from the two-member cast.

Bosman’s Veld Maiden - Barbie Meyer entertained a receptive audience with her interpretation of Herman Charles Bosman’s stories. Look out for her in Durban at the Rhumbelow Theatre shortly with the new Bosman festival.

Wombtide - another beautifully-crafted work by the FTH:K company directed by Rob Murray under the mentorship of Lara Foot. Don’t miss its last two performances.

Cinema is this year’s commissioned piece from Standard Bank Young Artist Award winner for Dance, Mlu Zondi. And he’s from Durban, remember! I would hazard a guess that this is probably the most “different” dance piece yet seen from winner of this award. First of all, the floor of the Transnet Great Hall is bare. You either stand or sit – but actually, it’s more effective to move around because the performers – both on the floor and those on the four screens placed high on the walls – remain in the same position. It also feels as if you are sitting in some kind of glacier that’s cracking because there’s a constant scratchy noise. This comes from the fact that the floor is covered in bubble wrap!

There was a major uproar in the afternoon – particularly in the Media Room where journalists were trying to file their stories to deadline – when Grahamstown had a power blackout at around 17h00. Apparently, this was due to an overloaded “breaker” on the main Eskom feed to Grahamstown which failed and prevented power from reaching any part of the town. The outage lasted 45 minutes but only four shows were affected and ticket-holders will be refunded through Computicket. - Caroline Smart

(Apologies for the earlier version of this diary which, through misinformation, blamed Eskom for introducing load-shedding in order to ensure that the World Cup Soccer match in Port Elizabeth didn’t suffer from electricity failures!)