By the time we got to Grahamstown, the wind had picked up and would have made any Cape wind proud with its coldness and strength and any thought of wandering around the town had been abandoned.
Out first show was ‘Rocket Raiders’ – brilliant! A comedy featuring 2 actors and a heap of supporting crew, hand-picked from the audience and a ridiculous story line about a girl who tries to save her father’s tea-empire by importing his rocket-tea (its gives the men a lift when they need to most!) to Great Britain, all while finding true love and thwarting a plot against her life. Clever prop’s and hilariously awkward lines and audience members made it one of my favourite shows.
Most of the audience participation was from very shy non-acting types, but the guy they got to play Sherlock Holmes was ready. Ready to participate, ready to act and ready to speak, so thinking on her feet, the female lead gave him a bad case of laryngitis and he had to whisper all his findings into her ear.
After a short break, we headed onto our next show, called ‘The Table’, which a drama about a Jewish Shabbat meal a year after the Father’s death. Lots of talking, issues and revelations with symbolism about the table and a couple scenes of interpretive dance (which I didn’t really understand, but I think they were processing). While also a very good play with superb acting and a good story line, it was difficult to make the transition from watching a comedy to a drama. But as the week has gone on, certainly the one people have bought up in conversation the most, which I suppose shows that it was thought-provoking.
Lunch –oh my goodness! There were nine of us – nightmare. All I can say is we ended up at Spur. Seriously!
Our third show of the day (we really did pack the culture in!) was called ‘Big boys don’t dance’ and if you ever get the opportunity to watch it, go for it! On this tiny stage, 2 guys did a show, which while funny, was essentially a plot device for them to break out into dance. Hip-hop, contempory, even a bit of ballet. Excellent show!
Our final show for the day was called ‘Dekaf’, a stand-up comedy show produced by David Newton. While the comedian was funny, he reminded me a lot of Trevor Noah and his brand of humour – even some of the jokes were similar- which probably made it my least favourite show seeing as it was so unoriginal. For others, it was their favourite by far.
Supper was a t lovely place called the ‘Red Cafe’, delicious food and divine hot chocolate, and we eventually headed back to the res we were staying at, which while warm had fantastic acoustics, so when the people leaving for PE early the next morning started getting up. I knew. And when the guy upstairs started singing, I knew. And when anyone left their room, I knew.
We had a slow start to the morning, with rusks and coffee for breakfast, before stepping out into the marginally warmer, but much less windy Sunday. Our final show was ‘The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Abridged’, which is where I discovered my school was adnormally fond of the bard, having studying 4 of them during high school. Everyone else only one or maybe two
The play was good, quite funny and prone to silliness, but covered all the works in record time, including doing Hamlet backwards – ‘Question the is that, be to not or be to.”
A wonderful weekend, I had so much fun, and too little sleep and almost caught pneumonia, but completely worth it!
i am sooooo jealous! Red Cafe was one of my favourite haunts in the little gtown! Indeed, Res accustics are impressive at best.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this little update, I am missing the fest and the vibe so its nice to know you were there and having a blast, but the wind sounds dreadful! ack.