The Edinburgh Fringe Festival was like landing on a strange island where everyone you meet is intoxicated with the performing arts: music or theatre. My first visit to the Edinburgh Fringe festival in August turned out to be an amazing and memorable experience. A ‘pilgrimage’ of sorts for performers and audiences alike, this world famous festival was a rendezvous for international theatrical and musical communities. The atmosphere was charged with excitement and theatre-lovers were exposed to a gamut of emotions – thought-provoking, heart-rendering, amusing or plain visual seduction. Not only were they spoilt for choice from a wide variety of plays, but they also got to see characters from the plays strutting around in their costumes in the streets, luring them to see their plays. which traced the lives of three escaped prisoners from a South African prison and explored their trials and tribulations of growing up, living, working, loving, in South Africa. They were caught in the legal system with 10-20 year sentences for crimes they hadn’t even committed. This piece of physical theatre and storytelling was superbly put together. Although they displayed an energy that may seem to lighten their pain of injustice, their inner feelings could not be ignored.

Written by Kgosana Thekwana and directed by Alex Motswiri the play was lively and most enjoyable. Missing, Gecko Theatre: Visually stunning and delicious at parts with mesmerizing choreography, the production centered on Lilly who harbored memories of a disturbed childhood. The dialogue was multilingual, with characters talking at cross purposes, adding to the mystery and weakness of Lilly’s mental state. The use of space was superb, with dimly-illuminated frames being used to draw the audience into different windows of Lilly’s world, and then hurling them to another corner of the stage. Before we can completely soak in an exquisite Spanish family banquet we were made to encounter a disturbing episode in the protagonist’s life. The effect was bewildering and mind-blowing with everything partly hidden and never fully developed. Don’t wake me, written by Rahila Gupta, tells the story of her disabled child for whom she struggles with the world for acceptance. Confident of her child’s intelligence, she only seeks the tools to channel this intelligence, but the experts resist and insist on a special school. This fight between the parents and ‘experts’ to allow children with disabilities to be taught in mainstream schools is presented candidly and heart-wrenchingly. A monologue written beautifully in prose and poetry drew the audience into the plight of this young child in a wheelchair trying ever so hard to rise above his situation – portrayed brilliantly by Jaye Griffiths who simply tells a beautiful story in a convincing way. Moments that make your eyes shine and your lips smile are numerous.