Adapted by Lara Foot in collaboration with the Handspring Puppet Company
Directed by Lara Foot puppetry direction Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones, Handspring
Life & Times of Michael K is a hugely ambitious theatrical staging of Nobel Prize-winning author J.M. Coetzee’s novel which combines puppetry, performance, film and evocative music bringing together some of South Africa’s most revered, multi-award-winning artists in this epic production, adapted and directed by Lara Foot.
Coetzee’s Booker Prize-winning novel tells the hauntingly beautiful story of Michael K, a simple man who embarks on a journey through South Africa, a country ravaged by civil war, to return his mother to die on the farm where she was born. During this journey, 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 Tony Award-winning Handspring Puppet Company are well known for creating the spectacular puppets in the West End and Broadway productions of Warhorse and, more recently Little Amal, the puppet refugee who has walked across Europe. The production recently won the South African Fleur du Cap Best Production Award.
Duration: 2 hours and 20 minutes with interval
26 July Post-show talk with the company