FESTIVAL DIARY – DAY #7

June 27, 2010

Well, we all thought the good weather was too good to last and today dawned cool then got colder and windier! At least there had been some rain for this parched area so one mustn’t be churlish and complain.

Only one production for me today as I’m beginning to wind down in preparation for leaving on Tuesday and I’m still way behind with writing reviews.

This morning’s show was one of the Ovation Award Winners, I Love You You’re Perfect … Now Change. This is a highly entertaining production of this smash hit American musical with book and lyrics by Joe Dipietro and music by Jimmy Roberts. It features Roland Perold (ex Durban), Candice van Litsenborgh, Niall Griffin and Shannyn Fourie with Kurt Haupt at the piano.

Then I had a chance to go round the exhibitions at the Monument. Michael MacGarry, this year’s Standard Bank Young Artist Award Winner for Visual Art, presents End Game which looks at the lingering effects of imperialism on contemporary Africa.

In the Thomas Pringle Hall, there’s the Keiskamma Art Project’s African Guernica which declaims the outrage at the suffering in the Eastern Cape due to the effect of AIDS on rural people. One wall features embroidered covers of medical records of patients who have died. A miniature boma – thorn branches and all – surrounds a large number of various sizes and shapes of clay vessels which are for sale.

Relaas is a solo exhibition by Rosemarie Marriott in the Atherstone Gallery. This is a fascinating collection of works made out of animal or iguana skin and aluminium as well as parts collected from taxidermists and local farms. The pieces range from the disturbing to the gracious but the redemptive quality of giving renewed life to dead or discarded objects is a primary motivation in Marriott’s work. - Caroline Smart