{"id":4679,"date":"2022-03-05T22:16:15","date_gmt":"2022-03-05T22:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=4679"},"modified":"2022-03-05T22:19:13","modified_gmt":"2022-03-05T22:19:13","slug":"life-times-of-michael-k-literally-epic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=4679","title":{"rendered":"Life & Times of Michael K: Literally epic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When JM Coetzee wrote <\/strong>Life & Times of Michael K<\/strong><\/em>, South Africa was a very different country. It was the beginning of apartheid\u2019s last gasp, the state doing all it could to suppress protests, riots, mounting civil disobedience campaigns.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The words of the\nnovel were being written less than two years before PW Botha\u2019s\nfinal State of Emergency, as conscripted soldiers simultaneously\nfought \u2018communists\u2019 on the borders and patrolled the townships to\nkeep unrest at bay. Society was roiling; the white living in fear\nand guilt while the black cried out and fought for recognition and\njustice. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coetzee brought the\nroiling and the violence to the fore, introducing us to a Cape Town\nbesieged by a war. And in it, Michael K, born with a cleft palate,\ngoing about his daily life, wishing no part of it. In his affliction\nand innocent rejection of all that is wrong, is alone, detached,\nthough far from unaffected. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The play of the same\ntitle, created recently, takes us on K\u2019s journey much the way\nCoetzee wrote it. His life raking leaves for the parks department,\nhis mother\u2019s illness, his filial loyalty in attempting to get her\nback to her childhood home at Prince Albert, her death, his surviving\nalone on the abandoned farm, being turned into a servant, wandering\ninto the mountains, interned in a camp, unjustly accused, escaping,\nliving off the land, captured again and placed into a hospital, his\nreturn to the space beneath the stairs in a flat block in Sea Point.\nOr as much of all that as one can fit in a play with the protagonist\nas a puppet. Which is a strange notion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet Coetzee\u2019s\ncharacter seems to lend himself to being of wood and wire and cane\nand string. Through his travails he becomes, in Coetzee\u2019s own\ndescription, a skeletal figure, more spirit than flesh, and so his\ncarved features, gaunt profile, seem a natural fit. It is difficult\nto conjure a character more suited to being portrayed as a puppet \u2013\nnear life size and manipulated by three puppeteers \u2013 than Michael\nK. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Metaphorically too,\nwe are all manipulated, none of us are absolute dictators of our\ndestiny. There are many forces acting on K, made visible in this play\ndirected by Lara Foot; the grey hands behind K\u2019s life from which he\ncontinually seeks to be free. Yes, numerous people moving puppets,\nhowever wondrously made by Handspring, is bound to be slow at times.\nThe nature of the medium, but these moments, where not used as a\nmeans of transformation, are few. Although, there is that scene when\nMichael K is made to climb a fence, and there\u2019s no escaping the\nquestion of what the puppeteers, all lifting him over on one side,\nare going to do when he gets to the top? There is the consecutive\nquestion: does it have to be this literal? There is no smug answer to\nthis. There are moments, entire acts, in which the literalism of the\nnovel is transformed from its past to the present day. Mostly we are\nenthralled. We are, after all, watching it as Russia invades the\nUkraine. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The crumbling wall\nas an ever-present backdrop is an inescapably prescient signifier of\nruin and destruction, particularly in the urban setting of the first\nhalf before projections transform it to the crumbling rural mud house\nof the hinterland. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The puppet is\nMichael K, the puppeteers the dim forces both propelling him to, and\nwithdrawing him from, his freedom. The cast are both characters and\nchorus, and the projections are used sparsely, their cinematic effect\nthreatening the smaller, more vulnerable world we\u2019re invested in\nwith mundanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With few exceptions\nthe lighting, design, acting, directing, the creative team as whole,\nare superb. With a sublime musical score, the overall effect is epic,\nmaking Life & Times of Michael K is<\/em>\nan accomplished, and\npertinent work drawing much from the canon of South African theatre,\nand no doubt adding to it. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, there\u2019s that question: why so literal?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life & Times of Michael K is showing at the Baxter Theatre until 19 March. Click here<\/a> for information and tickets.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When JM Coetzee wrote Life & Times of Michael K, South Africa was a very different country. It was the beginning of apartheid\u2019s last gasp, the state doing all it … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[1191],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4679"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4679"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4683,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4679\/revisions\/4683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}