Bird or boner?

I am always curious when the fest sales figures come out.

They will be out at noon, promises CEO Tony Lankester.

There’s always a bit of a moment around these dull stats as if, after 41 years, the I-told-you-so grundies, and those in the arts who hunger to have the extravaganza land on their big-city doorstep, can be gratified and smug. 

One wonders who is being parochial here. I suspect it is those who innately resent the sheer brilliance of a rural Eastern Cape success story.

Or those, like myself, who proudly believe in that brilliance, who see and feel the significance of this home-grown international event.

The problem for the critics and  the blindly ambitious is that  festival propaganda has worked for 41 years, because it is essentially  true.

There’s always that self-destructive shadow in artists mixed in with ruthless ambition. And then there’s the Mariachi’s comment that all art, especially theatre is lies, dam lies.

The truth is all in the ticket.

Throw those bones Lankester.

The dogs are waiting.