THE WALLIS HOSTS EXTRAORDINARY THEATER
Handspring Puppet Company (War Horse) joins Cape Town’s Baxter Theatre to bring Life & Times of Michael K to the Bram Goldsmith Theater at The Wallis in Beverly Hills November 21 to 24, 2024. I was lucky enough to catch it at St. Anne’s Warehouse in Brooklyn and it’s a must-see to watch these awesome companies transform Nobel Laureate J.M. Coetzee’s 1983 Booker Prize-winning novel into exquisite theatre. This sweeping, captivating and transportive stage adaptation is a multilayered production, using dance, film, evocative music, puppetry, and an ensemble of 11 amazing performers and puppeteers (while puppets are involved, the show is recommended for middle and high school students and older. Ticket holders to the Nov 21st performance are invited to the opening night party at The Wallis following the performance.
This hauntingly beautiful story follows Michael K, a humble man who finds solace in nature on an epic journey through a mythical, war-torn landscape. He embarks on his trek through South Africa, ravaged by civil war, to return his mother to die on the farm where she was born. He finds strength in his own humanity, his profound connection to the earth and his unique path, which, as it unfolds, reveals to him his reason for living. Michael K is an extraordinary embodiment of human reflex and interiority.
What begins as a fulfilment of his filial duty evolves into a philosophical pilgrimage, away from civilization’s destructive conflicts toward direct communion with nature. Coetzee has chosen an inimitable Everyman as his protagonist, an outsider, ostracized not for his social or political circumstances, but because of his disfigurement. However, Michael K has the unique ability to find his own version of complete freedom; he will not prescribe to servitude, nor politics, and chooses to stay out of any camps.
Life & Times of Michael K is the culmination of more than two years of planning. It marks the first time that director-writer Lara Foot worked with the Tony winners Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler from Handspring Puppet Company. At two-thirds the size of an average adult human, Michael is operated bunraku-style by a team of three puppeteers. There’s something strange that happens. You have these moments where he just comes alive, almost moving on his own. Michael is also a magnet for empathy, as puppets are generally. Generating soul, humor and anguish, the puppeteers’ extraordinary tenderness with Michael — the way they seem to be helping him rather than manipulating his light limbs — takes on particular meaning the more he suffers. The puppeteers are always in Michael’s service. Even when he finds himself in the high wilderness, wasting away from thirst, six gentle hands lift him up,
Michael’s disfigurement, difficult to portray with make-up on an actor, is ever-present, and a constant reminder that he is unlike most people. He may be considered ugly as a human, but this puppet’s eyes sparkle with pure light and life in a way the human characters don’t share. This is also a very funny play, with frequent, humorous acknowledgments that human manipulators are present behind the puppets’ performances, adding an extra dimension to the narratives of control and collaboration.
At two-thirds the size of an average adult human, Michael is operated bunraku-style by a team of three puppeteers. There’s something strange that happens. You have these moments — where he just comes alive — almost moving on his own. Michael is also a magnet for empathy, as puppets are generally — and a portal into the story in a way that no human actor would be. Mother and son are puppets, with their puppeteers visible on stage. At other times, Michael’s face is presented in closeup on film, walking through a majestic mountain landscape, in images strikingly juxtaposed with the live action scenes. Around the puppets, the ensemble cast of nine take turns to narrate the story of a man who initially seems defined by what he is not: not a hero, not powerful, someone who simply wants to be left alone, but is hounded by both sides in this unspecified, brutal war. He becomes a different kind of man, one who will be hard to forget. The cumulative impact of all the artistry on stage is immense.
photos by Richard Termine
Life & Times of Michael K
Handspring Puppet Company and Cape Town’s Baxter Theatre
Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts
Bram Goldsmith Theater, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd. in Beverly Hills
Thursday, November 21 at 7:30p
Friday, November 22 at 7:30p
Saturday, November 23 at 2p and 7:30p
Sunday, November 24 at 2p
for tickets (starting at $69), call 310.746.4000 or visit The Wallis
for more info, visit Baxter Theatre and Handspring
CREATIVE TEAM:
Written and directed by Lara Foot
Puppetry Direction Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones
Puppetry Design and Creation Adrian Kohler, Handspring Puppet Company
Dramaturg Felicitas Zürcher
Composer Kyle Shephard
Set Designer Patrick Curtis
Costume Designer Phyllis Midlane
Lighting Designer Joshua Cutts
Sound Designer Simon Kohler
Sound System Designer David Classen
Projection Designer and Editor Yoav Dagan
Projection Designer Kirsti Cumming
Director of Photography (film), photographer Fiona McPherson
Director of Photography Barrett De Kock
CAST:
Susan Danford, Andrew Buckland, Faniswa Yisa, Carlo Daniels, Billy Langa, Nolufefe Ntshuntshe
puppet master Craig Leo
puppeteers Roshina Ratnam, Markus Schabbing, Billy Langa, Marty Kintu