On the ninth day I slept in until the late hour of 7am. Apparently there's a gas crisis going on. I'm not up to date with the latest news, my world right now is the Tauranga Arts Fest. Im living and breathing it. I caught a glimpse of myself in a reflection and got a fright. My current look is haggard and my eyeballs are over compensating by fighting back the lids. Thank goodness for Loreal and associates.
I'm also really embracing the festival and having a feastival. As time will not permit gym workouts and exercise, I take that as a cue to eat crap. Friday's attempt to extract some energy included a dietary input of 2 coffees, 1 coke, 2 cake slices, a Moro and a vitamin B supplement.
At lunchtime Carey and I have an outing to a script writing chat from Tim Balme and Fiona Samuels with Jeff Lealand from the University of Waikato. As creative writers we found this quite interesting and beneficial and went back to work full of baking and satisfied.
I changed for Alvin Sputnik and headed up to Baycourt. It was with 5 minutes to go that the lightbulb switched on after talking to one of the Arts Fest crew, Becks. I was in the wrong location. Becks kindly leant me her car. I jumped into the 'bubble,' took on a superhero persona and zipped across town.
When I arrived, I slipped into the wrong side of the dark theatre and sat down. The scene I fell into tugged at my heartstrings. I endeavored not to cry. But then humour jumped aboard as adults and children laughed alike at the storyline and clever puppetry that was masterfully bought to life. I asked the sole actor afterwards what his intentions were with the storyline and whether I was on the same wavelength. He gave a completely different account. It's amazing how your personal experiences can you lead you to view the world in a completely different light. Like if five people were given the same ingredients and would end up cooking different dishes.
I had time to spare in between shows and spent the interim gnawing on a chicken drumstick covered in nine secret herbs and spices. I say nine because salt and pepper are clearly not the world's biggest secret.
I arrived at the Pacific Crystal Palace to see a campfire, hay bales and the Halloween version of The Village People. The Sad Lament of Pecos Bill began with the familiar twang of Western music and a rising deceased bride. The bride possessed an appropriately haunting yet ethereal voice and Bill had captured the whiny essence of a country cowboy.
The band was perfectly in tune to the story. From the tempo that encourages cow cockies to imbibe, to the replication of desert fauna, to the guitar sounding like a heat wave shimmering on a dusty horizon. I sat in the same booth as the bride's proud parents relishing in the performance.
Once the set was quickly packed up, a dance floor was made for the next act - The Storehouse. The Pecos Bill band reemerged and began to play bluesy roots music. The audience began to let loose and trickle onto the dance floor one at a time. However caution was thrown to the wind as soon as a bit of 'Dutch courage' kicked in. At that point I realized that at no matter what age, you still kinda act the same when you're drunk. This was my moment to exit and go home to rest my weary head.
The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik is on at 1pm Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th October at The Repertory Theatre (not Baycourt).
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