Magical flotsam and jetsam

26 January 2013

People are amazing, have I mentioned that?

In the summer of 2012 a South African woman went to a show called The Fear of Breathing at the Finborourgh Theatre . She loved it. She looked through the other work they had put on and noticed Sometimes I Laugh Like My Sister. As a sister of hers had died, this piqued her interest. Being, well, being who she is, she found me on twitter and started following me. When she saw the show was coming to her town - Cape Town - she was really pleased to know that she would be able to see it. As well as having a day job, this woman also writes pieces about theatre and reviews shows and so I went to do an interview with her... seven hours later she dropped me off again. We had managed to get the interview in, but we had spent most of the day talking about other things, which is what also happened when Martin had gone to do an interview with her. We had found Tracey.

We have lots of people in our last-night-at-Artscape audience, including Debbie who saw the show in London at the at the Finborough a year ago and has become a friend, and Umashan, who brings a few chums along. They sit in the front row,  I can see their little faces, which are lovely. I recognise one of the women, but I don't know where from. There are also lots of people I don't know, obviously, and their faces are equally delightful, although they fade from site - not like the Cheshire Cat, but up the raked seating and into the profound darkness.

Post-show we wind up at the Piano Bar, owned by one of Umashan's friends, and we are treated to a lovely time. I talk to people I know, to people I'm meeting for the first time. One of them tells me the story of the death of his sister, how it was for her, how it was for him. Later, one of his friends will tell me that they knew him at the time of his sister's death but that he has never really talked about it with them.

The woman I'm sure I know from the front row and I are both convinced that we've met before, but we cannot think where. We waste some time trying to work it out, but to to no avail and move onto more pressing matters, who we are, how we spend our time, how we now Umashan. Stacey and I will spend plenty of time together over the next two months but will never work out from whence (from where?) we know one another. I suspect it's from a previous life, not one where we were both WW1 fighter pilots, but one where we were both employed to weed fields somewhere with very bad weather.

Another audient joins our last-night-at-Artscape drinks, bringing a new friend of his along. Earlier in the week we'd had few post-show beers with him - he's another visitor to Cape Town. Have you heard the one about the Brit, the German, the Dane and the guy from Switzerland talking about the dangers of speaking, and yet not speaking, the same language? It was hilarious, but you probably had to be there.

I am so grateful to the show. It has brought me so many wonderful people who have become great friends, including the obvious icing on the showcake, Martin M. Bartelt himself. There is no awkwardness with people who've seen the show (or who've collaborated with me on it, obviously), they already know about Kate, and they want to spend time with me anyway. Given that I have friends, (of course, actually, they were 'friends') who have no longer wanted to spend time with me because of the effect of Kate's death on me, I am amazed and grateful beyond measure that any one of the extraordinary folk in Switzerland, Edinburgh, all over England on tour, in France, and now here in South Africa want to befriend us. Martin and I are... well, we are human: we are an acquired taste, and yet we have made so many friends on our travels.

Over the next nearly two months I will become indebted to some of these people who look after me while I'm in Cape Town, introducing me to their town, their friends, their ideas and who take me to shows, take me out walking and take me away from myself.