By Robert St. Martin
Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 11/22/24 – The hot ticket this weekend in Los Angeles is the limited run theatrical performance of Life & Times of Michael K. – in the Bram Goldsmith Theatre at The Wallis in Beverly Hills. Written and directed by Lara Foot and produced by Cape Town’s Baxter Theatre, Life & Times of Michael K. is an adaptation of JM Coetzee’s Booker Prize winning novel from 1983. The production is the work of Handspring Puppet Company and definitely something to see on stage. The mechanics and manipulations must be seen to be believed – with its puppeteers/actors masterfully maneuvering puppets in recounting the story of Michael K. during the apartheid era in South Africa.
Coetzee’s novel takes part in apartheid South Africa in the early 1980s in a country torn by a fictional civil war. Michael K sets out to take his mother back to her rural home in the town of Prince Albert. On the way there she dies, leaving him alone in an anarchic world of brutal roving armies. Imprisoned in a camp, Michael is unable to bear confinement and escapes, determined to live with dignity. Life and Times of Michael K. goes to the center of human experience and the protagonist’s need for an interior, spiritual life and for purity of vision with minimal contact with other human beings. Critics are tempted to compare Coetzee’s Michael K. to Josef K. in Franz Kafka’s The Trial (1925), although the personal and physical isolation of Coetzee’s protagonist seems deeper.
In this stage production of Life and Times of Michael K., the protagonist, Michael K., is a four-foot-tall puppet manipulated by three actor/puppeteers with mesmerizingly lifelike movements and gestures. Whether scaling a chain-link fence, breastfeeding, running from a perturbed goat, or wheezing a final breath, the puppet figures in this play carry the narrative with impeccable artistry. Puppetry directors Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones have meticulously choreographed moments of intimacy and grandeur that challenge the imagination. How does a puppet realistically give birth? How does a puppet swim? Can a puppet drink a spoonful of milk on stage?
Simon Kohler’s nuanced sound design fuses seamlessly with the noises generated by the ensemble to conjure each locale and incident without calling on overly illustrative scenic design. The performance is underscored by subtly shifting music and soundscapes almost incessantly, but the sound never feels manipulative or unsupported by the narrative. The soundscape is so effective it almost goes unnoticed. While the puppetry certainly is the focus, this adaptation of JM Coetzee’s novel, the narrative slogs through misfortune after misfortune, unfortunately mostly told through stagnant scenes weighed down by dialogue.
While the puppetry certainly makes the evening worthwhile, the piece itself is a bit redundant as the narrative slogs through misfortune after misfortune for Michael K. Mostly told through scenes weighed down by dialogue by the actors on stage, the puppets are not always at the forefront. After the first half hour, Michael K and his mother (both puppets) take off on a quest from Cape Town to the town of Prince Albert in a whimsically construed vehicle made by Michael. This is perhaps the most theatrically compelling action in the piece. The journey was delightful, but unfortunately short-lived.
It seems; in adapting the novel, Foot has transcribed the sequence of events without searching for theatrical footing to give the piece an active narrative arch. Further, the most imagistic language is relinquished to narration recited by the ensemble or else depicted by projections on the rear wall, ignoring the capabilities of puppetry as a medium. The commentary it seems to want to make about the human condition might have been better served if the play were to focus on one aspect of Michael K’s life – perhaps with puppetry in mind, a play which further explored he and his mother’s quest for her home in Prince Albert would translate better to the stage. Too many people abuse or take advantage of Michael K and it is not clear exactly how he returns to Cape Town at the end of the story. We are left with a set of episodes without any sense of progression. And we never really know if Michael K. is in danger for his life.
