NAF: UBU AND THE TRUTH COMMISSION

(Review from the artSMart team from the National Arts Festival)

This production will make you reflect on the past, and the future. (Review by Keith Millar)

Attracting a lot of attention at the National Arts Festival this year was the extraordinary multi-media masterpiece, Ubu and the Truth Commission.

Combining puppetry, performance by live actors, music, animation and documentary footage, it is a dark, sardonic and somewhat disturbing work.

Ubu and the Truth Commission uses the licentious buffoon, King Ubu, created by French playwright Alfred Jarry in 1896 to represent the policemen, assassins, spies and politicians of the Apartheid regime for whom torture, murder, sex and all excesses were a way of life.

This is blended with testimony given at the Truth and Reconciliation hearing, and against a background of dramatic change taking place in the country.

Pa and Ma Ubu, excellently played by Dawid Minaar and Busi Zokufa, are increasingly worried about how to face an imminent new regime. – and will do anything to hide the past.

The characters who testify at the Truth Commission are all puppets created by the Handspring Puppet Company and are in many ways more real and poignant than the live actors. It is a brilliant performance by the puppeteers who bring them to life.

A three-headed dog puppet is used to represent Ubu’s colleagues and collaborators in the state. This - together with a crocodile handbag puppet, named Niles, which is in fact a paper shredder - are chilling and sinister presences in the production.

Ubu and the Truth Commission was written by Dr Jane Taylor. Original direction and animation was by 1987 Standard Bank Young Artist, William Kentridge, and original choreography by 1990 Standard Bank Young Artist, Robyn Orlin. The puppets were all created by the acclaimed Handspring Puppet Company under the leadership of Adrian Kohler.

The play has received considerable international acclaim since it was first staged in 1997. The revival seen at the Festival was directed by 2010 Standard Bank Young Artist Janni Jounge.

Ubu and the Truth Commission remains a relevant work today. This production will make you reflect on the past, and the future. However, many of the issues dealt with in the play seem, in one way or another, to be still in practice in our country to this day. This thought left me feeling a little depressed after the show. – Keith Millar