barns.blog

Well, the festival has finally wound to an end. Today I saw my final two performances, which included the Festival Finale – The Festival Gala Concert.

But first. This morning I followed up brunch with Ten Bush a play about witchcraft and deceit in a small African village, the village of Ten Bush. It was an excellent performance, with its limited set design and raw stage feel of the Box Theatre. It did have its slightly explicit moments, and left one feeling slightly odd, but was really made by the voices. I am going to be hearing “Ten Buuush” (not that this does it any justice) for ages to come.

This was followed, finally, by Richard Cock’s Gala Concert, which included The Orchestra, some Opera, some Sax, and even Audience participation. It was also a tribute to the Festival CEO who has retired after being at the helm of the festival for many years.

The performance was a superb mix of classical and modern music, all chosen because of some significance to the year 2008. Unlike the performance yesterday, Richard Cock continuously addressed the audience and the whole occasion was less formal. (Indeed he was an a bright yellow shirt!) The grand finale was The 1812 Overture which made use of the audience and paper bags to create the cannons. An effect which worked quite well. For an encore, they performed (almost to my horror) the song NAFG – or National Arts Festival, Grahamstown. Richard Cock claimed that this had been commissioned for the festival, but it turned out to be the YMCA.

Quite appropriately, the sun was just setting over the horizon as we left the monument. A builtiful red and orange orb to place an air of finality on what was a wonderful celebration of culture.

Today should have had three different plays, but unfortunately, I had to trim one out because of work. Nevertheless, I saw two productions of very very different styles.

The first was a play entitled The Quiet Violence of Dreams and was – like 4.48 Psychosis – centred round mental hospitals. Unlike the former, however, it was set in South Africa. It also seemed very complicated to me. I’m uncertain if I actually understood the play completely. With an age restriction of Sex, Nudity, Violence and Language, it came as little surprise that it contained such things as rape and much sexual innuendo. Unlike Equus, however, there was no full on nudity, nor any very graphic sexual scenes. The set contained a projector which every now and then played a clip over the set. I found these clips to be a waste and did not add anything to the story. Indeed, I felt that they distracted from the overall production.

This was followed by the first of the Orchestral Performances which I booked. Like the ballet, I had a pre-assigned seat in the Guy Butler theatre and made my first use of the Festival Hopper Buses to get to (and from) the monument. I thoroughly enjoyed the concert. The performance was very classical – the conductor was even in Tails! We were even treated to an unexpected dose of Opera. (Although, I would have known that if I had read the programme properly.) It was good to get the opportunity to see an orchestra for a very rare change. I am looking forward to tomorrows performance.

This performance was part of the Standard Bank Jazz Festival, and musically was fantastic. Sibongile Khumalo can really sing and Mike Del Ferro was amazing on the piano! Although Jazz is not my first choice of music, I felt that I needed to see a little of it, and chose this because of the classical bits and pieces which were promised.

The integration of the Opera and the Jazz was fantastic and well worth attending. However, I could not enjoy the performance properly because the “Crew” kept on letting people in after the performance started and were themselves talking at times. I came very close to complaining. I would warn anyone attending a Jazz event at DSG Hall to NOT sit in the raised section at the back, the noise from the door is really distracting.

Mike Del Ferro’s piano solo was amazing and made up for me not going to the piano recital I was considering attending this afternoon.

On the side, we have booked fringe events. I wondered down to the Village Green after lunch and stood in the queue to book the tickets. For a queue that length, I didn’t feel that I had to wait too long. I then met up with Dan and Sarah and had a beer in the beer tent. All in all, I am seeing 19 productions. I couldn’t get a ticket for Romeo and Juliet (a dance version) which was going to make it 20. George has indicated that she doesn’t really want to see it, and so I might get her ticket. The Jazz tonight was performance number four, already!