By BRUCE DENNILL
Life And Times Of Michael K / Directed by Lara Foot / John Kani Theatre, Market Theatre, Newtown, Johannesburg
Having travelled widely internationally and delighted audiences wherever it’s touched down, this fascinating adaptation of the Booker Prize-winning novel of the same name by JM Coetzee, Life And Times Of Michael K came to Johannesburg with an enviable track record. A sign on the door of the theatre informing patrons that it’s a two-hour show without an interval underlines that investment is needed for the reward the piece offers but, although it is long and complex, Life And Times… never feels like it’s wading towards a conclusion.
In large part, this has to do with the multiple layers of performance, writing and production playing out at all times onstage. Two of the protagonists, including the title character, are puppets (created and operated by members of the Handspring Puppet Company), with two, three or even four puppeteers informing their movements, from the large and expressive to the subtle and moving, throughout. The puppeteers also act, along with an ensemble cast including Sandra Prinsloo, Andrew Buckland and Faniswa Yisa, with the number of characters far exceeding the number of actors and with multiple narrators giving clarity to the progress of the narrative. The performances include dramatic acting and interpretive movement (think how The Lion King depicts the movement of birds, for instance). A damaged wall doubles as a screen for large-scale projections, adding filmic scope to the live action on the stage below. And a textured sound design – instrumental music, sound effects and more – fills what spaces remain.
Given all of the above facets, there is much to focus on and much to assimilate. In the midst of all of this, Michael K himself is a simple, authentic presence, a young man who has resisted the temptation to allow his basic goodness and optimism to be abraded by the accumulated weight of the prejudices he must struggle against: his race, his poverty, the cleft lip he is born with, and apparent disinterest in whatever the stances are behind the civil war that forms a backdrop to the story. Michael’s story, for the moment, is much simpler: his beloved mother is ailing and wants to return to the farm where she grew up to live out her final days and be laid to rest.
Such modest but extraordinarily profound personal goals are set against the ghastly, unfocused hubris of the war, where combatants derive meaning from destruction, and the impact on individuals is deemed irrelevant. Such a story, tragically, applies to every age and context in which this play is performed, with the sense that events in the Ukraine, Israel, the US and elsewhere might inform how audiences in this run might feel, but that every conflict since the publication of Coetzee’s novel in 1983 has played the same role, and there will be future unrest to underpin the play’s tone in future productions.
Lara Foot’s adaptation and direction both unpacks the narrative and applies the layers at a careful, considered pace, which gives the piece a different feel to the average stage show where it is sometimes felt that velocity and volume are required to maintain audience attention. This makes watching the play a different experience and one that, if committed to, reveals details and touches that add considerable richness to what is already “merely” enjoyable and entertaining. A memorable example, though far from the only such occurrence, is a scene in which Michael is befriended by an old man, who gives him a pie to eat. The suspension of disbelief that has made Michael a relatable character has no problem with this development, but a puppet is patently unable to eat real food, so when one of the puppeteers directs the pie towards his mouth and takes a large bite (followed by the other two humans making Michael move), it adds humour, awareness of the craft involved in the action and a direct actor-to-audience engagement to the moment, helping onlookers to understand how much is involved in each moment of the performance.
Every member of the ensemble is superb, with the disciplined cast taking their lead from the beautifully constructed and manipulated puppets and by doing so, adding to a dense and intricate mode of storytelling that is genuinely different to what audiences usually see, and enormously effective in its uniqueness.
