By Susan Mansfield

Published 4th Aug 2023, 12:20 BST

Everyone in the packed theatre has their eyes fixed on Michael K. There is silence in Galway’s Black Box Theatre as the diminutive figure, dressed in the overalls of his job as a municipal gardener, turns to face towards the light and registers the news that his elderly mother is sick. The truly remarkable thing about this is that Michael K is a puppet.

Arguably, the word is insufficient to describe the hand-carved figure created by Adrian Kohler of Handspring, the puppet company which shot to worldwide fame for its work on War Horse. In this production, South Africa’s Baxter Theatre brings together the puppets, an ensemble of the country’s leading actors, film projections and a bewitching original soundtrack by Kyle Shepherd to create a mesmerising piece of work. When it ends after nearly two hours, the audience at Galway International Arts Festival rises slowly to its feet in appreciation as if waking from a dream.

The leading South African company are no strangers to the Fringe. In 2012, they staged Yael Farber’s storming contemporary adaptation of Strindberg, Mies Julie, which won a Fringe First and the Carol Tambor Award and went on to a 29-city international tour. They returned with six shows in 2017, including the Fringe First-winning The Fall, about the Rhodes Must Fall movement.

This show is very different, an adaptation by Baxter’s artistic director Lara Foot of J M Coetzee’s Booker Prize-winning 1983 novel about one poor man’s journey through his country in search of freedom and a place in the world.

Michael K, the son of a domestic servant, was born with a hare lip and was ostracised by his peers. Now an adult, he lives a simple life in a tiny one-room shack, working as a gardener in Cape Town’s parks. When his estranged mother needs help to return to the farm where she was born in the Karoo, they set off on an odyssey through a war-torn land (Coetzee imagines the racial tensions of the 1980s escalating into full-scale civil war).

“It was wonderfully challenging to work on, to find the essence of the novel and remain true to JM Coetzee’s work,” says Foot. “And Coetzee himself had to sign off on the adaptation – I was so nervous!” However, the typically frosty author was delighted. “He said: ‘Well, just don’t make it sentimental,’ and he was very happy that we found the light [in the story] but didn’t make it sentimental.”

She says the story speaks beyond the time in which it was written, and beyond South Africa, although it is firmly rooted in the landscapes and cultures of that country. “It’s the philosophy of a simple man who wants to find a semblance of freedom, and how difficult that is in the world today. It’s also about how little somebody needs to live, amongst all the politics and activism and greed and climate change, and the displacement of people.

“For me it’s about leaning into the darkness of the world, acknowledging the darkness that we’re living with, but holding it gently in a way which shines a light on humanity.”

The production came about through a commission from the Theater der Welt festival in Germany, though the proposed productions in Germany and at Avignon Festival were cancelled during the pandemic. It was finally performed in Germany last November, however, “having still not been to an international festival”, the decision was taken to bring it to Edinburgh where it is the jewel in the crown of Assembly’s theatre programme.

Puppet master Craig Leo, who has worked with Handspring for 20 years and was behind the lead horse in the original production of War Horse, says: “Whenever you’re working with puppets you have to ask the ‘why’ question. Why would you use a puppet and not an actor? What does the puppet offer the story that an actor can’t?

“Obviously, there are very practical things like you can’t have a goat on stage – well, you could, but good luck to you! But the puppets can do things on stage that humans can’t sometimes, like dying, or lifting in the air, expressing themselves in ways which are poetic and exquisite. I think in this show, the puppets hold the philosophical element really beautifully.”

He says the audience behaves differently when puppets appear on stage. “You have to invest, as an audience member, in the life of the puppet. When he’s standing dead still, you have to imagine his thoughts. The audience has a different relationship with a puppet, there’s less judgement than when they are confronted with a human being, so they are more open to leaning into it and finding out more. If you really want to grab somebody and pull them into an emotional journey, it’s a good tool.”

Leo also had the job of training the actors in the ensemble to manipulate the puppets, to tune in to their fellow puppeteers, look out through the puppet’s eyes. Leo says: “When we did War Horse, we were told: never anthropomorphise. You have the instincts and knowledge of a horse. If someone dropped a bucket offstage, the puppet would flinch. People were warned not to walk round the back of the horses, and if someone did, we were allowed to kick them!”

Lara Foot says: “There’s a real genius about brilliant puppeteers. I see them as scientists of the physical body. They understand where in the body you hold a particular emotion. They are actually actors as well, they are feeling all of Michael’s thoughts and dreams and then imbuing the puppet with that.”

She describes the character of Michael K as “a prophet, rather than an everyman figure”. Possessed of a strong sense of his own worth and humanity, he chooses solitude over situations where he is treated like a fool or a servant. He’s frequently hungry and thirsty, but meets the world on his own terms.

Leo says: “On a personal level, there is so much resonance in the story of a man finding his place in the world. I was born in South Africa but always felt different. Growing up as a young gay boy in South Africa in the 1980s, I was always looking for a place to belong.

“At the same time, Michael is also a refugee [he leaves Cape Town without the necessary permits for travel and is often on the run]. “That’s a huge question in the world today: where is home, what does home mean?”

Lara Foot says: “I’m aware it’s also not an easy story to watch, but I think we make it gentler the way we tell it, and there’s no question that people think deeply about it after seeing it. That is what theatre does.”

JM Coetzee’s Life and Times of Michael K, Assembly Hall, 12pm, until 27 August.

Edinburgh Festival Fringe preview: the War Horse puppeteer animating a Booker winner