The National Arts Festival starts Thursday 29 June 29 and a delectable programme of theatre, music and visual art awaits the festinos in Grahamstown.
Contagious Theatre, a new theatre-making collaboration between director Jenine Collocott, performers Taryn Bennett and James Cairns, and producers Helen and Simon Cooper presents James Cairns in three solo works at the National Arts Festival this year.
The productions are:
- El Blanco, playing at the Kingswood Theatre at 4pm daily (2015’s Golden Ovation Award Winner)
- The Devil and Billy Markham, playing at Princess Alice – The Edge at 11.30am daily
- James Cairns Against Humanity, playing at Vickys at various times – see the official programme.
Magic realism, the devil and a card game
Written by Gwydion Beynon and performed by James Cairns, El Blanco is a solo western, about a man who years to be a great mariachi, but ends up somewhere else. Karen Rutter from WeekendSpecial said Cairns is “the perfect choice to play a Mexican wannabe mariachi with an albino complex and a penchant for straying from the truth”. She added: “El Blanco takes audiences on a mad Mexican road trip where wolves turn into grandfathers, Turkish activists get frisky with Jennifer Lawrence, and a rotound guitar-player has the last laugh. It’s magic realism on Tequila, comedy on Peyote. It’s all about story-telling. It’s all about the story.”
Directed by Jenine Collocott and performed by James Cairns, Shel Silverstein’s The Devil and Billy Markham tells the improbable story of down-on-his-luck singer/songwriter Billy Markham. Told in classic Silverstein iambic pentameter and set on Nashville’s famed Music Row, the six-chapter tome details Markham’s odyssey from the legendary Linebaugh’s sandwich shop, to hell, to heaven and then back again.
In James Cairns Against Humanity, the eponymous Cairns faces off against the hit card game Cards Against Humanity in an improvised, made-up-on-the-spot, full length solo show.
What: James Cairns x 3
Where and when: National Arts Festival
WS
