Arts Week with Judy Murphy

A multi-layered stage adaptation of The Life & Times of Michael K, the Booker-winning 1983 novel by J.M. Coetzee, is among the major shows at next month’s Galway International Arts Festival, when it will receive its Irish premiere.

It’s being presented by South Africa’s Baxter Theatre and Tony Award-winning Handspring Puppet Company (War Horse), The book was adapted for stage by the Baxter’s Artistic Director, Lara Foot, who also directs.

The ambitious production, featuring several award-winning South African artists, is a multi-layered theatrical staging which combines puppetry, film and music.

The story, by South Africa’s Coetzee – who went on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature –  follows Michael K, a simple man as he embarks on a journey through a South Africa ravaged by civil war to return his mother to the farm where she was born. That’s the place where she wants to die. Michael K finds strength in his own humanity, his connection to the earth and his unfolding path, as he discovers the reason why he’s alive.

“The beauty of J. M. Coetzee’s work is the layer upon layer of metaphor, poetry and meaning, which lends itself beautifully to a multi-disciplinary style of theatre, combining puppetry, film, literature, live performance, movement, sound and music,” according to director Lara Foot.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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