Woyzeck on the Highveld

WILLIAM KENTRIDGE AND HANDSPRING PUPPET COMPANY (SOUTH AFRICA)

In this Adelaide Festival hit, spectacular life-size wooden puppets play out Georg Buchner's famed tragedy of jealousy, murder and the struggle of an individual against an uncaring society that ultimately destroys him.

In this adapted version of Buchner’s famous play, Woyzeck is a migrant worker in 1956 Johannesburg, a landscape of barren industrialisation. Rod-manipulated puppets, an arresting backdrop of ominous black-and-white film and haunting African music spectacularly convey Woyzeck's tortured mind as he tries to make sense of his external circumstances.

This legendary production is the first collaboration between Handspring and renowned artist and film maker William Kentridge. Since premiering at the Standard Bank National Arts Festival in Grahamstown in 1992, Woyzeck on the Highveld has played at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg, and toured to Germany, Spain, Belgium, Scotland, the UK, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, France and US.

Woyzeck on the Highveld is performing at the 20th UNIMA Congress & World Puppetry Festival in Perth and Brisbane Powerhouse.

“History says Johan Christian Woyzeck died long ago… But Woyzeck, the tragic common man, seems never to die… In his latest incarnation, Woyzeck has found himself a new skin (black), a new homeland (South Africa during apartheid), a new job (servant) and, perhaps most fitting of all for a creature so bedevilled by society, a new medium of expression: he is now a puppet.” NY Times

“… an ample display of the power of puppetry … a captivating show … Woyzeck is clearly alive in South Africa. And so is the high art of puppetry.” NY Times

Director: William Kentridge
Designers: Adrian Kohler, William Kentridge
Animation: William Kentridge
Puppet maker: Adrian Kohler