This blog has been sadly neglected lately. This is a piece I started writing on a plane on the third of July and only got back to now. So, my impressions of this year’s National Arts Festival… late, but still…

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The sunset sky is fading as we leave Grahamstown. After a while, the darkness begins to close in. To the east, the sky is still alight. The lighter blue stretches down towards the horizon, fading to sunset colours. Shreds of grey cloud are scattered across the world’s edge against a background of sky the colours of a ripe peach. In the few moments before it fades, it is beautiful.

The sky grows darker. Above, the clear dark blue is jewelled with stars. It’s not clear enough to see the Milky Way here, as it has been at the beach house these past few days, but still there are too many stars to count. Around the horizon, lighter blue recalls the recent sunset.

We come over a rise and the city of Port Elizabeth stretches before up, a front of glaring electric lights creeping closer and closer as we move. The cloud above reflects the light, the jagged storm front waits like some ghastly, orange glowing beast crouching over the city. Waiting, dark and stormy.

The last few days have been amazing. A wonderful blur of family, friends and something approaching what an overdose of culture would look like if I believed for a moment that it was possible to overdose on the theatrical arts. I am sad to be leaving so soon. The festival will continue for another week – a full 11 days of AMAZ!ING (just like it says on the box).

It is difficult to capture a single top moment or best show. Over a hurried lunch one day, we started a game of trying to come up with a single-word review of each show. Some are easy. ‘Evocative’ is such an obvious explanation of Anatomy of Weather, a physical theatre/contemporary dance piece that has won an Ovation Award since I saw the show. Of course, it does not capture the whole show but it is the strongest description, for me, of the emotional experience of the show. After a while, the game ran dry. Some shows are difficult to describe in one word. Some need a thesaurus and a dictionary. “What is the word for when the performer has the whole audience in the palm of his hands throughout the show?” Dirt, an amazing one-act play that has the audience so sad over the plight of an imaginary dog that some people seem almost in tears. And we’d have to invent a whole new word to describe Raiders!

I feel as if I have to capture the shows, capture the experiences now before they float away, become intangible. Become mixed with the ordinariness of real life. Sie Weiss Alles on Thursday was great. I’ve seen both actors before and love their work. This is a little different. Different even from the write-up in the programme. I found the lightness an excellent spotlight on the realities of the situation.

Lightness. Perhaps I can choose a favourite show. 3Acts of Love. Richard Antrobus is fast becoming my favourite South African performer (although it remains a hotly contested position). His physical theatre has a way of shutting down the brain in order to reach out to the senses directly and sweep you away in a visual fantasy that is at the same time moving, simple and intensely captivating. But without trying to alarm or ambush the brain. It is gentle and beautiful; pleasure and beauty as a medium of communication. You let go, forget the world and enjoy it. And then you’re walking out and the messages of the movement, the words, the juxtaposition, shows up in your conscious brain with no effort at all. The senses absorb and absorb and deliver the memory of the experience without waiting for the analytic mind to catch up.

And laughter. So many shows forget that comedy and tragedy are two sides of the same coin (or masks, as the case may be). I saw some stand up this year, of course. My younger sister is a huge comedy fan and has a knack for picking the best of a good bunch. We saw Rob van Vuuren (of course). I enjoy his ‘real theatre’ more than TMAS. His stand-up is funny and this year felt a lot more mature than the last show of his that I saw. More personal.

I was pleasantly surprised, too, by the Durban Comedy Invasion. Amusingly, at least to me, they seemed pleasantly surprised by an audience who could understand jokes requiring slightly more knowledge of the world, politics and grammar. Perhaps it was a gimmick but it worked for this crowd.

I also really enjoyed Ryan Dittman’s one-man show Stranger things have happened. I’m particularly fond of the kind of one-man show that has one performer but 10 or so characters. I like the technical skill and the funny people.

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So much has happened in the past two weeks that I’m almost struggling to remember what else. Almost. The ballet was lovely – my first Swan Lake. I was particularly pleased to see some of the male dancers showing real style and elegance. Cape Town City Ballet has been working hard to develop young male dancers in the past few years and it’s great to see it working.

Flicker was another great physical piece. A beautiful exploration of relationship and time. Mouche was still beautiful, although more aggressive than the previous time we saw it.

My last day was a richness of music, with the Grahamstown Sextet and the always-fantastic Gala Concert conducted by Richard Cock. A wonder end to a weekend.

All in all, a great festival. This year was a short weekend for me but I’m planning to work very hard to make sure that the next one is a full, long immersion in the things that make my brain tingle and leave me smiling for weeks. Thanks to all the performers and organisers for making it amazing and my wonderful friends and, particularly, family for the joy of sharing something as special as Fest.