Erica Whyman in South Africa, Part II

So where to start. I've seen fifteen shows in five days, plus three talks, a couple of exhibitions and many memorable conversations. and I've eaten a massive amount of chicken! The Grahamstown festival is the strangest, most contradictory place I've ever visited. A frontier town with pretty clapboard houses, whitewashed security walls, elegant University buildings, and on the hill the huge grey concrete Settlers Monument, which makes the National Theatre in London look like warm and cuddly architecture. The Monument is a symbol of the 1820 settlers, from England, who took this land and claimed it as their own. Now it is the festival hub, covered in posters, filled with people selling their shows, and decorated outside by a line of young performers with white face paint, the 'statues', who will dance for you if you give them a coin. From the hill, you have a panoramic view of the townships, where most of the fringe companies are staying, reliant on lifts and hitchhiking to get to and from their venue.

The town is freezing cold, especially at night and we had to invest in hats and jumpers as the week went on. There is a buzz in the streets, but it seems quiet for an international festival, and I am shocked by how silent, and dangerous it can feel at night, even with hundreds of shows on. The roads are crazy, filled with cars, and very few helpful signs, so everyone seems permanently lost. And whenever you park you meet a car guard, sometimes quite elderly women , who will watch over your car in return for a few coins whenever you feel like coming back. One woman told us she would be on the street guarding cars until 4 am, because she had children to feed. The casual acceptance of poverty and desperation in this country still takes my breath away.

I won't list all the shows we saw, but just try to give a flavour of the huge range of work here. For instance we saw a British co-production of a new piece about memory, rather beautiful but very earnest. A touching play about the dreams of young women who want to move up in the world, an amazingly exuberant physical piece about daily life working in the mines, a play about prison, one about the justice system and a classic outdoor Midsummer Nights Dream performed in the sunny gardens of a magnificent country house by very well spoken drama students! The vast majority of the black led companies are presenting plays about rape, infidelity, inequality and HIV, which can become pretty tough viewing. Meanwhile much of the white led work feels very European and often has little connection to Africa or to life here. It is a very disconcerting mixture. Most of the young black performers cannot afford to see any of the other productions, although there is a fierce trade in comps and they make every effort to see the work of friends and neighbours.

Here are a few of my highlights, the shows I think I will remember for quite a time. A production called Halo, which looked at the role ancestors play in African society, and the effects of ignoring them on a white family. It was a very poetic piece of writing, very theatrical in style ad made me think about my own family and the legacy we each carry with us. A new play called Ten Bush, part of the main festival and produced by the Market Theatre, which was a very disturbing story of curses and witchcraft, asking some searching questions about violence and cruelty. A fantastic production called Awaiting Trial, made in a township in Gauteng (near Jo'burg) and performed by three tremendous young actors, who used simple physical staging to tell a dark and funny story about being selected for heaven and hell. A show called Curs In The Womb, a startling reworking of Oedipus set in a mythical Xhosa tribe, which was very funny, very troubling, and somehow had a happy ending once everyone had accepted their mistakes! I really enjoyed the bold playing style and the integration of Xhosa traditions and language, it felt much more alive than some of the dour versions of Greek plays you can see in the UK. And perhaps my favourite experience was seeing a small show called Life On The Streets of Grahamstown performed by sixteen very young people, some as young as seven and eight. They used mime and comedy to paint a picture of the tough life of crime, pickpocketing, gangs and the daily fight to survive. They were very self assured and engaging, and I was never lost although the whole show was in Xhosa. They really demonstrated what is possible with almost no resources except a massive dose of determination and a desire to give the audience a really good time.

On Sunday we saw Ours Was The Dawn, by our old friends Monde Wani and Nomsa Siyo. Monde is a writer, director and perfomer, who was in the show Elephant which toured to the North East, and Nomsa, his wife, is an actress and gospel singer. They both spent a few weeks with Northern Stage last summer so it was great to see them again. Their show was fabulous, so alive and funny and touching. They take a look at the new South Africa through the eyes of an ordinary couple who are dealing with a lot of change (she has a powerful dream to run her own business., and he is not so keen when she leaves him a flask of coffee rather than being home to make it herself!) . They perform with great affection, songs and a fantastic rapport with the audience. Monde also does an unforgettable impression of Mandela! We were thrilled when they got a great review from the Festival newspaper.

So, now I really should tell you about the fierce policeman.. Mo and I were stopped because she didn't stop at a stop sign. She was crawling over it a very few miles an hour as, as usual, we were not sure where we were going! The policeman was determined to make us pay a fine, and took great pleasure in explaining that if Mo didn't pay a warrant would be issued for her 'immediate arrest'! We made sure to stop at every stop sign from then on. This was not quite as scary as the night we accidentally turned left instead of right and found ourselves heading back on the motorway to Port Elizabeth. I was confident there would be a place to turn round, until Mo pointed out that SA roads don't work like that and you can go for sixty or more kilometres without any exits at all. Luckily there was a hotel not far out of town and we made it back in about twenty minutes.. it was a close thing though!

I'm back in PE now, for a very special women - only event tomorrow. I'll try to write more about that before I come home .

July 3rd, Port Elizabeth, SA

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