Theatre of Animation

Marion Baraitser

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 1999
• Print ISBN: 9781138159471
• eBook ISBN: 9781135293451
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Mezzi di comunicazione e arti performative
• Subtopic: Arti performative

Published in 1999, 'Theatre of Animation' is a valuable addition to the field of performance.

Contemporary Theatre Review
1999, Vol. 9, Part 4, pp. 45–82
Reprints available directly from the publisher
Photocopying permitted by license only

© 1999 OPA (Overseas Publishers Association) N.V.
Published by license under the Harwood Academic Publishers imprint,
part of The Gordon and Breach Publishing Group.
Printed in Singapore.

Director’s Note Faustus in Africa

William Kentridge

When I was twelve years old, in a TIME LIFE book on the mind, I came across a chart of great geniuses of all time ranked according to putative IQ. Heading the list, like the top money winner on this year’s PGA, was Goethe, a name quite unknown to me amongst the Einsteins (position 6th I think) and Mozart’s 3rd.

A few months later I was given, among the atlases, dictionaries, and fountain pens that constituted the typical presents for a Bar Mitzvah, a two volume translation of Parts One and Two of Goethe’s Faust. For approximately twenty-five years the books stood unopened on my bookshelf.

The production Faustus in Africa has a number of starting points. One of which was the silent rebuke of the Goethe on the bookshelf. During the period of stalking or avoiding the text I tried to find other versions, other less daunting tellings of the story and considered at different times everything from Marlowe, to George Sand, to Gertrude Stein, to Lunacharsky’s pre-revolutionary Faust, to Bulgakov’s marvellous version, The Master and Margerita. (The Hyena in our production gives a nod and cocked leg to Bulgakov’s cat.) But in the end there was no avoiding the power and strangeness of the two volumes. The play we finally ended up with uses sections of Part One, fragments of Part Two and new material written by South African poet Lesego Rampolokeng (finding affinities between the rhythms of rap and knittelvers). All this with the aim of finding the place where the play ceases to be a daunting other— the weight of Europe leaning on the Southern tip of Africa-and becomes our own work.

A second point of entry was the fields of colonial imagery in the libraries and archives around Johannesburg. Weeks were spent looking through old magazines, maps, advertisements, images from colonial wars. This lexicon of images gave us the starting point to develop the characters, the settings, the interaction of the scenes of the play. (Faust was based on a daguerrotype of a Belgian explorer—Helen on a 1920’s cigarette advertisement.) This world of images became the bedrock in which to test the idealism of Goethe’s Faust against the rather more earthy materialism of colonial Africa. To see if a riposte could be given to Hegel’s high-handed dictum (written at the same time that Goethe was writing his Faust) that ‘after the pyramids, World Spirit leaves Africa, never to return’.

A third point was the puppet work; wanting to develop and extend what we had done in Woyzeck on the Highveld, wanting to play further with the ambiguities of a performance made up by the combination of puppet and actor. We also wanted to take the idea of rough carving of the puppets even further—Mephisto’s brass band is carved with a chain saw and router. Engineering techniques that Adrian Kohler wanted to develop determined some characters and scenes.

The principle behind all the work whether on text, image, or puppet, was to see if, in the process of working, of drawing, carving and rehearsing, a coherence and meaning can be made, rather than an established polemic be illustrated.

CAST

Faustus	Dawid Minnaar
Mephisto	Leslie Fong
Gretchen	Busi Zokufa
God	Busi Zokufa
Johnston	Louis Seboko
Helen of Troy	Antoinette Kellermann
Hyena	Basil Jones Adrian Kohler
Director	William Kentridge
Puppetmaster	Adrian Kohler
Animation	William Kentridge
Animation Assistant	Hiltrud von Seydlitz
Set Design	Adrian Kohler William Kentridge
Lighting Design	Mannie Manim
Music	James Phillips Warrick Sony
Sound Design	Wilbert Schübel
Stage Manager	Bruce Koch
Sound Technician	Melanie Keartland
Tour Manager	Wesley France
Puppet Maker	Adrian Kohler
Assistant Puppet Maker	Tau Qwelane
Costumes	Hazel Maree Hiltrud von Seydlitz
Photography	Ruphin Coudyzer

Faustus in Africa

Mephistopheles’ office, based on a Lorenço Marques Telegraph Office in the 1920’s. The set is made up of five major elements: at the back, a large screen, flanked by bookcases; in front of that, a set of shelves which partially obscure the manipulators; in front of that, a long bureau with a green baise top; SL of the Bureau, a desk into which a large drum is set; SR of the Bureau, a small telephone exchange in front of which is a swivel chair.

Mephistopheles is played by a human actor. He and the manipulators are dressed in ‘20 ’s office garb. The men in grey suits, the women in calf-length skirts and sensible shoes. The other characters are played by puppets, each manipulated by two actors, often visible on either side. The screen images are back-projected by a video projector.

ACT 1

1.1 SCENE: PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN.

Caption on screen: “Prologue in Heaven”

On screen: A clock, a planetarium projector and God appearing as a mega phone

GOD: Since once again Sir,
You are here to see how the world and we are getting on,
I make my report.
Your stars, planets, galaxies are not my cup of tea.
The self-inflicted woes of Men are all that interest me.
Give me the little gods of this world
In just the same situation as on the first day of creation.
Sir, would life on earth be quite...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• INTRODUCTION
• ALL HE FEARS
• TITLE OF PRODUCTION: ‘ALL HE FEARS’
• INTERVIEW WITH HOWARD BARKER
• WHY PROMOTE TEXT-BASED DRAMA FOR LIVE ANIMATION?
• FAUSTUS IN AFRICA
• DIRECTOR’S NOTE FAUSTUS IN AFRICA
• SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
• NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
• CONTEMPORARY THEATRE REVIEW: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL
• INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS