Yeah.  So Rob van Vuuren, or Twakkie* as many of you Souf Afrikans will know him, is pretty much running festival.  Well that’s the way it seems.  It feels like every single show either stars him, or is directed or produced by him.  Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since the man is a fukken legend.  I’ve succumbed to the hype, and seen a few “Rob van Vuuren’s” myself.  And as tempted as I am to dismiss him as an arrogant toss, he’s actually a machine.  His body, his face, are like putty.  He just moulds himself into whatever character he’s playing.  I think I have a little crush.  He must be buggered.  I cannot imagine how he’s doing it.  But dammit, he’s definitely got the festinos talking…

But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

I’ve seen 10 shows so far.  And I’ve got another 4 to go.  And I’m feeling faintly guilty that I didn’t squeeze one more in yesterday afternoon.  But Fest Fatigue is setting in, and I’m getting a bit jaded about stuff.  I’m starting to get that:

“Ja, dudes, it was, like, lank powerful, but you know, the motif of the caged bird was just to passé hey.  Like, there are so many other ways you could explore the zeitgeist of our subconscious denial of self, with out alienating the audience and their experience, man.  Sjoe.”

So it’s time to stop booking stuff and just enjoy what’s left.

In short, after the Dando/Kitchen/Max Normal/Ray Phiri thing and then Romeo and Juliet, I saw:

Raiders: The Daily Lama 

No Festival experience is complete without a visit to the latest Nick/Luke Ellenbogen romp.  Hilarious audience participation comedy, this year’s ridiculousness was about one man’s voyage to the Himalayas to save a vulture.  Or something. Plot is irrelevant..  Audience members are given roles and costumes and cues to come in on.  The father and son duo of Nick and Luke ham it up.  No one is safe from Nick’s roaring stage voice, hurling insults and suggestions and commentary.  The obligatory corpsing.  It’s really, really funny, in a really, really silly way. Always worth the price of the ticket.

Brother Number

One staring “RvV” and James Cairns.  A physical theatre piece about The Department of Home Affairs.  Odd. But beautifully characterised.  With some seriously funny moments and an outrageously good use of set and lighting.  Typical to a lot of small festival shows, the boys played a range of characters; each one conceptualised and delivered with beautiful attention to detail.  I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be a comedy or not.  But I laughed, and was strangely moved.  

Electric Juju

A one man play starring…um…yep…RvV.  He blew me away. Completely.  Again, a fantasy, physical theatre piece with an utterly minimal set and Rob playing about 7 characters, it was whimsical and tender and gorgeously acted.  Some pieces were a bit rushed and jumped, but each character had not only a individual voice and tone, but a physicality that was mesmerising to watch – and Rob’s ability to jump between them to weave the story….flip.   I could almost smell the market and taste the salt on the ocean air.

Jutro

A story about love.  Set in a bombed out basement club in Poland in the second world war.  Also lovely and sweet, with moments of beautifully executed timing and stage craft, the play was a gentle look at the power of love in the midst of disaster and horror.  I much preferred the male lead, James Cunningham, who was excellent (Keren Tahor just felt like she was trying a little too hard).  And I wasn’t particularly satisfied with the end.  But I suspect that had a lot to do with the play being my fourth of the day!  Amazing use of set though (apparently they won an award).

Rob van Vuuren is Ron van Wuren

An hour of stand up from the man himself.  Watching this after Electric Juju clinched the crush for me.  He’s funny.  Very funny.  In a self-deprecating, physical, sweet (tales of sharing a tent with his granny and his mom) way.  Well ok, the pavlovian arsehole stories weren’t that sweet, and more self-defecating!  The show was a kinda review of his acting life, with little vignettes from his farm based childhood and stories of how he and Louw Venter (Corne) lived in a bakkie for a year, touring the Most Amazing Show.  The story about how they accidentally burst in on a funeral, thinking it was the corporate gig they’d been hired to work, ending in Corne licking the priest’s bald spot, had me knyping for fear of wetting me knickers.  He’s a funny, talented boy.

Skin

One of the few international acts (but, daaahling, of course in collaboration with South African folk), this dance piece was cool, but not mind blowing.  Divided into two parts, the first bit was a multimedia piece which, while technically excellent and with an astounding stage and light show, was a bit soulless. The second piece was inspired by Africa….and just felt like a cliché of everything African dance is supposed to be.  A good performance, but in the context of the wild, passionate stuff of Romeo and Juliet, I was a bit underwhelmed.

The Insatiables

SA acting legends, Tim Plewman and Johnathan Rands in a play about greed, friendship, corruption and ethics.  Brilliantly acted.  A great script.  But a bit heavy handed with the “morality is grey and a slippery slope” message and sadly let down by the woman playing the young psychologist who offers the foil to the stories told by the two leads.   I like seeing stuff that really plays with the boundaries of theatre and performance art, but it’s really nice just to see a good proscenium arch play well acted by two well known guys, who know what they’re doing and really deliver every line cue perfect.  Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Swazi

Another “stand up” comedy show (directed by….da daaaaaa….you guessed it, Rob van flippin’ Vuuren).  I use the inverted commas, because that’s what it was billed as, but it felt more like a scripted one man show.  Mark Elderkin is a Swazi national and spends the hour telling pretty damn funny stories about his life growing up in the country of Richard E. Grant.  His characterisations of the Swazi people, white and black, are hilarious.  And his timing great.  His story about being held up by incompetent robbers, while his mum prays and his step father is frightfully British, is seriously silly.  And his comment that most Capetonians want to smoke him made me laugh, because I’d assumed the show would be about Swaziland’s best export myself.  Nice to be able to laugh out loud.

So it’s Friday morning, and I’m almost done.  It’s been fab, fab, fab.  I love this crazy town and this crazy time.  It’s made me feel human again.  Just four more shows to see and then I head back to home, to the delicious LB and my own little mouse house.  All filled up with the magic of the beautiful lie.

*Of Corné and Twakkie fame, and their stuff in the Most Amazing Show.  Guy. 

The National Arts Festival.  Man. Even thinking about it makes me a bit leapy and excited.  I love it. Always have. The raw talent. The shite.  The motley crowds of arty, studenty, poncy, hippy, culturedy types.  The mix of classical and contemporary.  The jazz.  The dance. The comedy. The drama.  It’s my yearly treat to myself.

The getting here was a bit of a mission.  LB outdid himself by taking me, happily, to the airport at the crack of dawn….and buying me breakfast and helping me deal with the endless fekkin’ frustration that is traveling in South Africa.  One plane ride, a couple of hours to kill in the airport and a hair-raising drive to the sleepy town of Grahamstown got me from bed to there in just about 7 hours…I could have driven up in 9.  Oi.

But I was delighted with the surprise news that my mate Melon, who is hosting me with her amazing furry husband and delicious 2 year old son, has booked us to see Evan Dando.  Him of the Lemonheads fame.  Delicious boy, crooner, rock god. Yum. 

So, with that news, I was over the fekking shiteness that was getting up at 5am and then flying SAArse and enjoying a crisp, blue, gorgeous Eastern Cape day, with the prospect of a night on the town with some of my favourite people, seeing one of the seminal artists from my youff strum his stuff on the stage.  Yay.

And off we went.  Wrapped up in a million layers against a fah-fah-fah-ha-reeeeeezing Eastern Cape June night, we wandered down to the TapHuis, found seats and were told that there were actually 4 artists on for the night.  Bonus.  Syd Kitchen and Ray Phiri were on the lineup, including some outfit called Max Normal.

And Max Normal stole the show.  Hilarious Afrikaans rappers, using multimedia and dressed in the oddest collection of outfits, they took the piss out of everything in their “high energy hip hop show; in die huisie, julle”, but with a subtle, clever humour. I luuuuuuurved them.  Their collaboration with Sid Kitchen, at the end of their set, inspired by the soundtrack of Juno, was just beautiful.  Cheeky and sweet.

“That’s why we love the Dassie” is now officially my phrase de jour.

Dando was faintly disappointing.  Technically brilliant, with the soulful voice I remembered.  But absolutely not interested in engaging with the audience.  I could have just listened to a CD.  At one point the audience was actually calling for Ray Phiri to come out.  Ouch.  Though, to be fair, Phiri was his usual brilliant self.  We didn’t stay to the end…Dando was pissing us off…but SO much more than we’d expected and a brilliant start to my ’08 Fest.

There were hangovers. 

And today, through the pain, I watched Romeo and Juliet, an interpretive dance piece by a company I saw last year interpreting Macbeth.  That performance was powerful and mesmerizing.  This one, even more so.  I was blown away.  Set almost entirely to pieces by Vivaldi and Bach, it was emotional and breathtaking.  Dada Masilo, creator, lead and this year’s Standard Bank Young Artist for Dance, was in.cred.ib.le.  Every movement exploded out of her lithe, supple, toned body.  I was riveted.  Described in the programme as “a unique fusion of ballet and cotemporary techniques”, it was half raw, kinetic dance and half the fluid grace of ballet. Gorgeous.

And now I’m sitting in the kitchen of Melon and the Furry one, eating outrageously good home made soup and deciding what to watch tomorrow.  Before having a stupidly early night.

Bliss.

*GRIN*

May the choruses sing and the corks fly…it’s the birthday of the incomparable Kyknoord.  Hurrah and Huzzah!  With highly polished brass knobs on!

I wish you mountains (both sides) of presents you actually like, buckets of tea, much blog fodder and more hits than you know what to do with.  

*birthday mwah*+

+Do tea drinking demon’s get jealous?

In the palm of my hand is a small creature.  A tiny insect beast.  Sturdy carapace.  Brown armour.  Antennae waving.  Legs tickling over the pink of my skin.  A life so small, I wonder at its purpose.  The purpose of this energy, bustling over a monstrous terrain.  The valleys, plains and slippery contours that make the panorama of my hand.  The comparison of us.  Large and small. And I wonder if I seem small, insignificant, to some other being.  If my bustling and strife seems inconsequential.  And I breathe into the moment.  Laughing at my own self-importance.  My stupid ego.  Huge and railing and the unfairness of things.  Happy to shrug off the mantle of want.  The responsibility of getting it right.  Happy to smooth the wrinkle of day to day zealousness from my forehead.  Content to just sit in a warm patch of winter sun and watch the clumsy stalkings of a beetle.