Fruit and vegetables, masks and cloth are just some of the props called into play at the African Puppet Theatre Festival. DAVID LE PAGE reports
LUNCH-HOUR traffic crowds the streets in Rosebank, Johannesburg. An unusually hot sun beats down. At the junction of Oxford and Glenhove roads, two photographers and several traffic officers wait. The photographers are impatient; the public servants are untroubled. At ten past one an ancient yellow Datsun bakkie with a colourful cargo hurtles into the Engen garage parking.
A stocky, red-haired man of medium height in a cap and sunglasses springs from the cab yelling directions to an accompanying vehicle. Making quick apologies to those who have been waiting, he sets about directing the construction of two large structures of fibreglass and painted fabric.
Within a few minutes two towering figures take shape. Broad wire hoops support long robes. Dancing manipulators peer out through shade cloth apertures. Soon two giant puppets, each with large hands supported by additional puppeteers, venture out into the bemused traffic. The red-haired man darts about like an imp, directing the swaying figures among the cars. Here they embrace and caress the front of a lorry, to the delight of the labourers within; there the stiff hands descend incongruously through the sunroof of a BMW.
The puppeteers are associated with Gary Friedman Productions, the red-haired imp is Friedman himself, and the banners they bear with them carry the name of his brainchild and the event they are promoting: the first African International Puppet Theatre Festival, at Johannesburg’s Civic Theatre.
The festival has been eight months in the planning, has attracted several international groups, and has expanded to such a degree that Friedman, himself a puppeteer of many years’ experience, has been forced by the demands of being a co- ordinator to cancel his own plans for a show.
The festival includes a programme of workshops on topics ranging from “The Mask to Unmask” and “Puppetry for Television”. Running alongside the workshops and theatre is a two-day conference, “Puppetry in Education and Therapy”.
These events are focused more on the needs of theatre professionals and educators, but those whose appetites for the medium have been titillated by the Handspring Puppet Company’s successful production of Faustus in Africa have much to look forward to. For alongside a host of local productions for children are two shows from overseas that are certain to capture and hold local imaginations.
The first is called Sunjata. It is a combined production from the Ivorian company Ki-yi Mbock and a French company, Amoros et Augustin. Sunjata combines enormous shadow puppets, elemental African forms, with dance, music, drumming and song. Faustus was billed as being a “multi-media” production. Sunjata is equally worthy of the term, though it is a very different strain. The story is that of an African king, a cripple who ends his exile to rescue his kingdom.
The second is Fatal Fun, an Austrian production by Theater Ohne Grenzen. The production is performed by two manipulators on a tabletop in a small venue. The characters are fruit, vegetables and everyday objects that play out themes of racism and prejudice. The show is already well-travelled and comes pursued from Melbourne by a memorable press comment: that, among other things, “the grief of the umbrella was palpable”.
Unlike other African countries like Mali, there is no indigenous tradition of puppetry in South Africa. Friedman, a man deeply enthusiastic about the event he has created, yet somewhat awed by the scale of the beast, hopes that the festival, the first of its kind, will not be the last. Certainly, public perceptions that the medium is for children need to be changed. Friedman has been working at this for years. Last year he was the man behind the SABC’s puppet interviewer, Clarence, in Election ’94 programmes. In the 1980s, he used puppets to create an anti-apartheid street theatre, using caricatures of figures like PW Botha to level biting criticism at the state. This certainly touched many adult nerves, though provoking some juvenile responses: he was once beaten up in Durban.
If the festival is repeated, Friedman has little doubt that it could be enormously expanded, as a number of other overseas groups have expressed interest in attending. The main limiting factor has been finance. This first festival is supported by a handful of organisations including the French Institute of South Africa, the Foundation for the Creative Arts and Arts Alive.
Friedman offers a number of reasons why as a nation we should take puppetry more seriously. Puppetry offers a way around such delicate subjects as sex and politics. (Friedman has been involved with Puppets Against Aids since 1987.) It is a relatively inexpensive theatre medium that can be invaluable in education and therapy. And puppets can emphasise neutral human characteristics, making obsessions with things like race seem silly.
Perhaps as important is a national tendency to take ourselves far too seriously. Repression may have loosened its grip on the polity, but our imaginations may take a while to discover corresponding freedom. Without needing to go so far as seeking out our “inner children”, we can certainly profit from a medium that promises to develop our sense of play.
The African International Puppet Theatre Festival runs at the Johannesburg Civic Theatre from September 18 to 25. For details of the theatre, workshop and conference programmes, phone 403-3408