For those of you who don’t know, Drive With Me is (mostly) about driving to Grahamstown, to the festival. And that is exactly what I’ll be doing tomorrow morning. There is no weirder way of getting into character and mood than doing all the things I have written down and been rehearsing for four weeks.
This drive will be the beginning of the culmination of almost two years of work. In 2011 I was driving home from the festival when I was flooded with the images, sights, sounds and sensations of Drive With Me. It was the music I listened to, the things I ate, the people and animals I saw.
After the massive disappointment of not performing it at last year”s festival, I decided to give it a trial run (a reading actually) at GIPCA’s conference and it was met with a really positive response. And then Simon Cooper from Kalk Bay Theatre said he would produce it for this year’s festival.
It has been a magical four weeks, working with my director Liz Mills, sound artist James Webb and media man Sanjin Muftic. It has been a joyous rehearsal in a lovely space, where slowly, the production has pulled together with invisible threads, and become ready for an audience.
I have become preoccupied and single minded. I say word runs while I do everything else. I picture the drive, the venue, the performances. I am ready for Drive With Me.
If you are coming to the festival, and you do end up seeing it, please drop me a line to let me know what you think.
