Woyzeck On The Highveld

The Handspring Puppet Company is performing Woyzeck On The Highveld at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg on 4 - 30 March 2008. (It will also be in Cape Town in May)

It's a multi-media event incorporating the animated drawings of William Kentridge with the Handspring puppets and live performers in an adaptation of German writer Georg Buchner's famous play of jealousy, murder and the struggle of an individual against an uncaring society which eventually destroys him.

The production originally premiered at the Grahamstown Festival in 1992 and was the first collaboration between Handspring and Kentridge. It brings together rod-manipulated puppets and animated film to graphically illustrate Woyzek's tortured mind as he tries to make sense of his external circumstances.

I saw Handspring's brilliant Tall Horse a few years ago, so I'm extremely excited to see another one, especially one featuring William Kentridge animations.

Tickets are available now, and it's not even that expensive. Don't miss it!

Tall Horse

Last weekend I saw a production of Tall Horse by the Handspring Puppet Company. They specialize in using life sized wooden puppets that require up to 3 puppeteers to manipulate. A certain suspension of disbelief is necessary, since the puppeteers are visible the whole time (apparently a traditional Chinese puppeteering style), but once you get used to it, you literally don't even notice the puppeteers anymore, and the puppets come alive. Here, the whole 5 m tall giraffe was handled by just 2 puppeteers on stilts.


The story of Tall horse is based on the life of a giraffe that was caught in southern Sudan, taken up the River Nile in a felucca and shipped across the Mediterranean by the Viceroy of Egypt to be presented as a gift to the King of France. It wintered in Marseilles and in the spring of 1827 took several months to walk to Paris, creating a sensation along the route and, some say, inspired the design of the Eiffel Tower.