Absurdities of old, unjust system remain relevant
William Kentridge with Janni Younge as assistant director Adrian Kohler from Handspring Puppet Company Dawid Minnaar and Busi Zokufa with puppeteers Gabriel Marchana, Mongi Mthombeni and Mandiseli Maseti The John Kani at the Market Theatre September 11
THE HEART-wrenching yet hysterical Ubu and the Truth Commission has come full circle and aptly, 20 years on, at The Market where it also had its local beginnings.
There’s so much to witness, from the William Kentridge artistry with the animated animation, Minnaar and Zokufa’s grand performances as Pa and Ma Ubu, the moveable feast of a pink concoction which drives Zokufa’s performance, Brendan Jury and Warrick Sony’s nuanced music with local references, the puppets (and their puppeteers) that are impossible to describe without catching their movement, and the script which seems to bite into any zeitgeist, especially the one the world currently provides.
It is about remembrance and reflection which in this young democracy we should cherish. But also as you see the scores of small children (not even given a reprieve to get into their lives) dying in Syria at this moment because of Bashar al-Assad’s preferred barrel bombing, Ubu is a story that keeps pricking your conscience. This not only because of our nightmarish past, DIRECTOR/ANIMATION: PUPPETS: CAST: VENUE: UNTIL: RATING: ★★★★✩ but because it is a never-ending cycle which seems to grow extra heads with the excessive greed that seemingly never fails to drive those in power.
There’s so much to celebrate in this modern classic, one of the first to emerge from our new-found freedom post ‘94. It is the remarkable insight of Jane Taylor, who wrote the script, the artistic vision of a Kentridge not only to link up with Handspring Puppet Company, but also to incorporate his art, the choice of the two leads, with Minnaar in full command of the slimy Ubu, while Zokufa is both the trophy, but also the power with all the cards up her sleeve. She at least doesn’t trust her cunningly crafty man and has her own games to play. For these two individuals, the only people who count when the cards come tumbling down is themselves.
One cannot help being swept along by the hoopla of the Ubu power couple in collapse. Together with that and the Handspring menagerie that are vigilant and menacing to their master and his victims in turn, it’s a spectacular visual and visceral feast.
But in between watching the madness of manoeuvring an icily slippery slope, it all quietens down with the traumatic testimonies that will never lose their impact delivered emotionally by the family and followed in the familiar sing-song voices of the translators. It doesn’t matter how often you have heard the painful stories, the harshness never fades, as they shouldn’t. It is that nudge never to forget the cruelty, the total lack of humanity and disregard for human life with a reminder of why the emphasis on reconciliation and forgiveness should be a constant in our national conversation. And the reminder that for a new generation who might not know, this performance is a revelation.