After having been postponed last year due to the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions, Life & Times of Michael K – a Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus (Germany) and Baxter Theatre co-production – will have its South African première at the end of this month.
Nobel Prize-winning author JM Coetzee’s Life & Times of Michael K, adapted for the stage by Lara Foot, in collaboration with the Handspring Puppet Company, will run from Monday 28 February until Saturday 19 March at the Baxter.
This co-production between Theater der Welt Festival, Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, Baxter Theatre Centre and Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg, brings together some of South Africa’s most revered artists.
Written and directed by Foot, it is the largest undertaking by the theatre over the past decade and is the culmination of more than two years of planning. It marks the first time that she will be working with the Tony award-winning Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler from the hit production War Horse-fame, along with a formidable cast and creative team.
The 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 production was invited to debut at the Theater der Welt festival at the Düsseldorf Theatre, Germany, in June 2019. however, the festival was postponed to June 2021 because of the pandemic and travel restrictions.
The world première was livestreamed from The Baxter to Düsseldorf and in November last year the company travelled to Germany to perform live for the first time, to great acclaim.
The 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”.
Life & Times of Michael K is a multi-layered theatrical staging which combines puppetry, performance, film and evocative music.
The 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.
The creative team is made up of 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).
All Covid-19 protocols are in place as regulated by lockdown restrictions at the time. Patrons and audience members are advised to arrive at least an hour before the start of the performance to avoid delays.
Life & Times of Michael K runs at the Baxter Theatre at 19:00 nightly and Saturday matinees at 14:00 on 5, 12 and 19 March.
