24/08/23

Assembly (Main Hall), Edinburgh

Based on JM Coetzee’s 1983 Booker Prize winner and adapted by Lara Foot, Life and Times of Michael K is a bleak and occasionally heartbreaking narrative, brought eerily to life by South African company, Baxter Theatre. While a nine-strong group of performers hurtle around the massive stage enabling the action, Michael K himself is portrayed by a puppet – though that’s rather underselling what’s delivered here. Devised by the Handspring Puppet Company, perhaps best known for War Horse, Michael is a character you’ll totally believe in from the moment he takes his first hesitant steps.

We see him as he emerges from the womb of his mother, Anna (another puppet), into a harsh world, where his cleft lip serves to alienate him from just about everybody he encounters. We watch him grow, share his early encounters with others and see how he eventually finds happiness working as a gardener in Cape Town. But when a violent civil war threatens to engulf the neighbourhood, Michael decides to take his ailing mother back to the family home she so often talks about, a place she knows only as Prince Albert.

They have no money for fares so Michael constructs a rickety handcart, piles Anna and her belongings into it and the two of them set off on the long and arduous journey to a place he isn’t really sure exists…

Their resulting experiences are hard and unrelenting, but the performers work their socks off to ensure that, despite a running time of two hours, the momentum never falters. There’s some exciting physical theatre to relish and sometimes the huge backdrop illuminates with location photography, into which the marionettes are convincingly incorporated.

Michael’s devotion to his mother – who actually does very little to deserve it – is humbling and the overarching themes of the value of human life and the evils of privilege are starkly written.

This is a gentle but powerful production that has the crowd up on its feet at its conclusion. If spectacle is what you’re looking for at the Fringe, this is definitely one to seek out. But you’ll need to move quickly: there are only a few more performances left.

4.4 stars

Philip Caveney