Placebo

Lunchtime at the Cape Town Fringe, and in the darkened rooms of the German Club the number of people on the stage outnumber their audience. And sat with only one other person in the auditorium I felt like an X Factor judge auditioning the performers. Why? Not enough publicity for the show (or the whole fringe perhaps)? Or does the word ‘poetry’ make people shy?

The people standing on the stage this lunchtime were not actors, they were poets, rappers, slammers and singers; they were wordsmiths. They were Why Not Poetry, and they were having fun. Throughout most of the show, a young man strummed his guitar to their words, and the music lifted the rhythm of the voices. Their lyrics were honest sometimes, apocalyptic sometimes, but hopeful sometimes too.

The members of Why Not Poetry were offering an alternative way of dealing with life. The way of the word.

Homeopathy is an alternative form of medicine. Skeptics would say that it has no results, that its power is purely placebo. In a homeopathic medicine the effective substance is incredibly diluted before being administered to the patient. For an hour today we were a just diluted audience: a fractional number of persons to seats, but like homeopathy to the believers, the performance was potent. For there is no greater gift than a poem.

Go catch Why Not Poetry tomorrow (October 3rd) at 11.00 or 19.00, or on Sunday at 18.00.