FESTIVAL DIARY – DAY #4

Caroline Smart's Festival Diary: June 24, 2010

Today was spent frantically trying to catch up with reviews, loading both my own and those from the contributors. artSMart has four reviewers on the festival: myself, well-known Durban performers Shika Budhoo and Thomie Holtzhausen as well as Durbanite Sifiso Sikhakhane who is currently studying at Rhodes in Grahamstown. Between us all, we are reviewing over 40 productions - watch artSMart on a daily basis!

First show of the day was London Road, which is currently one of the hot contenders for a Standard Bank Ovation Award. Sometimes pre-hype – everyone telling you it’s the most fantastic thing they have seen – can put a show at a disadvantage because you go expecting the impossible.

Not so with London Road! What an incredible performance from 37 year-old Robyn Scott as the 78 year-old Jewish granny Rosa, with a breathing disorder and whose life is drawing to a close. Putting in an equally impressive performance, and supporting Robyn to the hilt, is Nthombi Makhutshi who plays a drug-dealing Nigerian who becomes Rosa’s closest friend and confidante.

In the afternoon, I caught up with a production I missed last year when a bout of flu laid me low. Stilted was last year’s No.1 selling physical theatre show on the Fringe. I was very pleased to see it back again so that I could catch Richard Antrobus’s extraordinary performance. He choreographed and wrote the piece which is directed by Andrew Buckland and features Tristan Jacobs. Did you believe it possible for a man on stilts to hop onto a trampoline and bounce about, doing somersaults and leaping into the air? Neither did I. Till today. And I still can’t believe that I saw what I saw!

This year sees the introduction of the Arena. A collaboration between the National Arts Council and the Festival, this new programme will act as a bridge between the Main and Fringe programmes and will give excellent exposure to productions that could have been on the Main programme. Many of these productions are being presented at the new Loerie Hangar venue up past the University residences and the Cue Offices. The venue was officially launched this evening and Fringe Manager Kate Axe Davies was justifiably honoured for her part in getting it up and running.

Coming out of the Monument on my way to the launch, instead of the usual blast of all four winds hitting you as you step outside, it was a beautiful balmy evening with a spectacular sunset – all deep rich oranges and gold with silhouetted trees on the skyline. I am staying with my husband’s cousin and his wife who live on a farm on the outskirts of Grahamstown. This entails a trek down a dirt road into the veld, as it were, but once at the farmhouse, it’s always a delight to look up into a cloudless sky, see a perfect moon and the Milky Way stretching far above you – reminding you that there’s a higher being who can put on just as spectacular a display as any festival production! – Caroline Smart