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Fahiem Stellenboom
Booking is now open for the limited return season of Nobel Prize-winning author, JM Coetzee’s Life & Times of Michael K, from 5 to 15 July 2023, adapted for the stage by Lara Foot, in collaboration with the Tony Award-winning Handspring Puppet Company (of War Horse and Little Amal-fame), in The Pam Golding Theatre at The Baxter.
Following it’s hugely acclaimed, sold-out success last year, this short run, is back by popular demand, before the production heads off on its international tour to the Galway Festival in Ireland in July and the prestigious Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, in August.
Winner of the Fleur du Cap Best Production and Best Puppetry Design awards, it also received five further nominations for Best Lighting Design, Best Costume Design, Best Performance by an Ensemble, Best Sound Design, Original Music, Soundscape or Live Performance (for Original Music and Sound Design).
Epic in scale, the multi-layered theatrical staging which combines puppetry, performance, film and evocative music, gives life to Coetzee’s Booker Prize-winning novel and brings together some of South Africa’s most revered, multi-award-winning artists and creatives.
Written and directed by Foot, it is the largest and most illustrious undertaking by The Baxter over the past decade. The world premiere was livestreamed from The Baxter to Dusseldorf and in November 2021 and 2022, the company travelled to Germany to perform live for the first time, to great acclaim.
The creative team is made up of Lara Foot (adaptor, writer, director), Handspring Puppet Company (adaptors, puppet directors, design and makers), Patrick Curtis (set design) Kyle Shepherd (original music composition), Joshua Cutts (lighting), Fiona McPherson and Barrett de Kock (directors of photography and film), Yoav Dagan (videography and editing), Kirsti Cumming (projection design), Phyllis Midlane (costumes) and Simon Kohler (sound design).
The impressive South African cast includes theatre legends Sandra Prinsloo, Andrew Buckland, Faniswa Yisa, puppet master Craig Leo, Roshina Ratnam, Carlo Daniels, Marty Kintu, Billy Langa and Nolufefe Ntshuntshe.
The South African and German media raved, with Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung describing it as “… a brilliant Coetzee adaptation …” and “… the lights went out and a spectacular evening of theatre began …” while report-D said, “It was beguiling. Different. Great.”, and RP Online described it as “Great theatre.”
South African arts activist and critic, Faye Kabali-Kagwa, called it “… nothing short of amazing. It's ambitious, bold, and quite honestly is a great example of the power of theatre”, while radio personality and speaker coach at TEDxCapeTown, Andre du Toit, called it “an absolute triumph” and The Critter said, “… a sublime musical score, the overall effect is epic, making Life & Times of Michael K an accomplished, and pertinent work …”
The hauntingly beautiful story follows Michael K, a simple man who embarks on a journey 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.
Life & Times of Michael K runs at The Pam Golding Theatre at The Baxter, from 5 to 15 July 2023, at 7pm nightly and Saturday matinees on 8 and 15 July at 2pm. Booking is through Webtickets online or at Pick n Pay Stores. For discounted block or schools’ bookings and fundraisers contact Leon van Zyl at leon.vanzyl@uct.ac.za.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAID IN GERMANY
“… a brilliant Coetzee adaptation …” - Simon Strauss, Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung
“… the lights went out and a spectacular evening of theatre began …” - Simon Strauss, Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung
“Lara Foot builds impressive images together with her puppet ensemble, taking plenty of time to let the precision in the collective guidance of a half-life-size marionette take effect.” -Simon Strauss, Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung
“… a captivating counter-vision to all the violence and suffering Coetzee recounts.” – Sascha Westphal, Nacht Kritik
“Great theatre ... we are witnesses to a great choreography of life and the suffering of life.” - Lothar Schröder, RP Online
“This is not a didactic play. It is poetic power, which confronts us so closely with pure struggle for survival…” - Lothar Schröder, RP Online
“It was beguiling. Different. Great.” -Birgit Kölgen, report-D
The audience is gripped … at the end there is a genuine applause for the ensemble in Cape Town …”. -Birgit Kölgen, report-D
WHAT SOME OF THE CRITICS SAID IN CAPE TOWN
“Lara Foot’s adaption in collaboration with the Handspring Puppet Company was an absolute triumph.” - Andre du Toit, radio personality, speaker coach at TEDxCapeTown
“What Lara Foot and the Baxter Theatre have done is nothing short of amazing. It's ambitious, bold, and quite honestly is a great example of the power of theatre.” - Faye Kabali-Kagwa, freelance critic and arts activist
“Yet the world of the play is lovingly rendered (by a stellar cast) such that the people who occupy it are specifically marked in these terms. The video projections that give the production its epic scale, as we trek with Michael across the Karoo or into the mountains, also lend it a particularity. On stage, then, the story of Michael K has a tangibility, a vividness and a “roundness ” that is absent from Coetzee’s allusive and elusive depiction.” – Chris Thurman, Business Day
“Visually it is spectacular and achieves a moving world that is both elaborate and evocative … Foot has thrown all her energy and skill into this one and there are many memorable moments to witness and remember. It is a worthy production that captures the zeitgeist” - ” – Dianne de Beer, DeBeer Necessities
“With a sublime musical score, the overall effect is epic, making Life & Times of Michael K an accomplished, and pertinent work drawing much from the canon of South African theatre, and no doubt adding to it.” – Steve Kretzmann
“Lara Foot, working in collaboration with the Handspring Puppet Company, has transfigured JM Coetzee’s Booker award winning novel, Life & Times of Michael K, from page to stage, with her signature magical realism, which imbues this gruelling tale with a light touch which speaks of hope and resilience.” - Robyn Cohen
“The puppetry is masterful, and brings with it heightened symbolism in the choice of characters portrayed by puppets as opposed to those that are purely actor driven´- Barbara Loots
“Lara Foot's adaptation of the novel is slick and compelling … This production is a treat for the senses.” – Faeron Wheeler, Broadway World
PRODUCTION INFORMATION
The Baxter Theatre Centre and Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus present JM Coetzee’s
Life & Times of Michael K. Adapted for the stage by Lara Foot, in collaboration with the Handspring Puppet Company.
CREATIVE TEAM
Written and directed by Lara Foot
Puppetry Direction: Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones
Puppetry Direction, 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 Claassen
Projection Designer and Editor: Yoav Dagan
Projection Designer: Kirsti Cumming
Director of Photography (film), photographer: Fiona McPherson
Director of Photography: Barrett De Kock
CAST
Actors: Sandra Prinsloo, Andrew Buckland, Faniswa Yisa, Carlo Daniels, Billy Langa, Nolufefe Ntshuntshe
Puppet Master: Craig Leo
Puppeteers: Roshina Ratnam, Marty Kintu
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