29 — 31.05
William Kentridge, Handspring Puppet Company Johannesburg-Cape Town
Faustus in Africa!
theatre
| English → FR, NL | ⧖ 1h30 | €25 / €20 | Gunshots, flashing lights
In 1995, South African visual artist, animated filmmaker, and theatre director William Kentridge created Faustus in Africa! with Handspring Puppet Company. Informed by his deep commitment to the anti-apartheid struggle, the legendary play had Faust set out on safari and plunder the African land and people in his quest for knowledge and power.
The performance was presented at one of the first editions of Kunstenfestivaldesarts. Now, 30 years later, Kentridge has reworked Faustus in Africa!, linking it to extractivism and politics in the new South Africa and globally. Sadly, the question posed by the original theatre classic remains relevant: are we willing to betray ourselves and make an ill-fated deal with the devil for short-term gain?
The new script combines Goethe’s drama Faust with the irony of South African poet Lesego Rampolokeng. A new generation of performers brings to the stage a harmonious blend of theatre and world-class puppetry. James Phillips’ music underscores Kentridge’s stunning animations. A project and an artist that should not be missed at this 30th festival edition.
"Faustus is impish, comedic and magical." - Karen Rutter, 2025, Weekend Special
"Though Kentridge’s inimitable animation is densely and delightfully allusive, connecting disparate dots across a few centuries of visual history — a crisscrossing network of literature, art, geography, philosophy, warfare, architecture, advertising and more — what sustains our interest is the deft theatricality of a committed ensemble, combined with the astonishing puppets they manipulate." - Chris Thurman, 2025, Wanted Online
Faustus in Africa!
The impulse to revisit a piece made 30 years ago has been growing for several years.
Faustus in Africa!, the second piece created by William Kentridge with Handspring Puppet Company, had been an exciting opportunity to build on the experiments of Woyzeck on the Highveld, our initial partnership from ‘92.
With Woyzeck, Kentridge’s hand-drawn, ‘stone age’ charcoal animations had conveniently utilised the ability of film to instantly shift stage locations, but the more important discovery, was the screen’s ability to reveal the hidden thoughts of a character whose static face was made of wood.
With Faustus in Africa!, the screen scape became significantly more ambitious. So too the more than 20 puppets, and especially the music. In the years leading up to the unbanning of the ANC in 1989, James Philips—now deceased—became an icon of resistance music amongst Afrikaner youth. With Faustus in Africa!, he and Warrick Sony were able to turn their music in a theatrical direction, composing a magnificent soundscape of irony and wistful longing.
During the 1990s Faustus in Africa! had been a joy for the Handspring puppeteers to perform, touring widely across Europe and the USA. Over the intervening years we had often dreamt of a revival, but the piece had so many elements that seemed to have floated apart over time: script, puppets, video, props, sets, costumes. There was no video recording, just a bald script.
Then, in 2021, Handspring Puppet Company began a collaboration with Lara Foot, writer, award-winning Director and Artistic Director of Cape Town’s Baxter Theatre. Her adaptation of J.M. Coetzee’s Life & Times of Michael K with Handspring provoked a burgeoning fascination with the puppet.
Together we were looking for a new collaboration. As we are living through a time when pacts with the Devil are going down all over the globe it seemed a good season to call Faustus back to our stages.
However, for 30 years everything had been in storage, and there, in a box we discovered the stage managers prompt script! All the links and notes about the action. The film footage was located in Johannesburg and sent for digital restoration. In Warrick’s archive he found all the original music.
In February 2025 a whole new generation of actors gathered in Cape Town to hear William explain his original adaptation of Goethe’s mammoth opus and how the animation commented on and illuminated the text.
Then Lara began plotting the action, often breaking out from the restrictions that the puppet playboards traditionally demanded. She edited 30 minutes of the text and allowed some filmed sequences to run simultaneously with stage action. New puppets and special effects were added, all scenes rigorously interrogated with the cast.
One scene in particular—the auction of Faustus’ African art collection—provoked anguished debate. Some of the sculpted heads on the auctioneer’s block have eyes that move. Clearly, they are sculptures but are also alive before being ruthlessly smashed under the auctioneer’s hammer as the price rockets. A powerful metaphor for the crushing of a continent made more grizzly by the relentlessly jolly ragtime soundtrack. Should we change the music? Should we keep the scene?
During our tech week, William returned to polish the piece and in fact, changed very little. The new Faustus in Africa! with its auction intact, is now off on its way with his blessing.
- Basil Jones and Adrian Kolher, Handspring Puppet Company, April 2025
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Note from William Kentridge
Faustus in Africa! was produced at the time of and in response to the negotiated settlement between the outgoing nationalist government South Africa and the incoming African National Congress (ANC) government.
What were the ethical cots of this agreement, in which there was a clear choice of peace over justice?
We have not changed the images that are projected at all. The text remains the same. The puppets are dusted off but essentially untransformed. Over thirty years, the arms of the original performers have grown tired and we have younger, stronger arms doing the puppeteering and acting.
But in these thirty years, South Africa and to an extent the world itself has rotated.
Even though the production is the same, it is seen from a new angle. Things that were peripheral to the first production—the question of ownership and repatriation of African artworks, greed and corruption in the new South African state, now take a more prominent position. But the central questions of the weight of Europe on Africa has not fundamentally changed.
The work is always a combination of the piece itself, that comes towards the audience and the associations and insights that an audience brings to what they see. These associations and understandings shift over time. The words that come from the stage to the audience are heard and seen anew.
- William Kentridge, April 2025
29.05
- 20:30
30.05
- 21:30
31.05
- 15:00
- 19:30
Presentation: Kunstenfestivaldesarts, KVS
Director: William Kentridge | Associate director: Lara Foot | Puppetry directors: Adrian Kohler, Basil Jones (Handspring Puppet Company) | Rehearsal director and associate puppetry director: Enrico Dau Yang Wey | Design: Adrian Kohler, William Kentridge | Animation: William Kentridge | Puppet construction: Adrian Kohler, Tau Qwelane | Puppet costumes: Hazel Maree, Hiltrud von Seidlitz, Phyllis Midlane | Special effects: Simon Dunckley | Set design: Adrian Kohler | Set construction: Dean Pitman for Scene Visual Productions | Set painting and dressing: Nadine Minnaar for Scene Visual Productions | Translation: Robert David MacDonald | Additional text: Lesego Rampolokeng | Music: James Phillips, Warrick Sony | Sound design: Simon Kohler | Lighting design and production management: Wesley France | Stage manager and video operator: Thunyelwa Rachwene | Sound engineer: Tebogo Laaka | Video controller: Kim Gunning | Technical manager: Lucile Quinton | Cast: Eben Genis, Atandwa Kani, Mongi Mthombeni, Wessel Pretorius, Asanda Rilityana, Buhle Stefane, Jennifer Steyn | Quaternaire producers: Sarah Ford, Roxani Kamperou, Emmanuelle Taccard
The 2025 version is produced by Quaternaire/Paris and restaged with support from co-commissioner Festival d'Automne, Théâtre de la Ville | Coproduction: Kunstenfestivaldesarts, The Baxter Theatre Centre at the University of Cape Town, Centre d'art Battat, Printemps des Comédiens 2025, Domaine d’O, Fondazione Campania des Festival, Grec Festival, Thalia Theater
The 1995 version was produced by Handspring Puppet Company in association with The Market Theatre, Art Bureau, Kunstfest, Standard Bank National Arts Festival, The Foundation for the Creative Arts, Sharp Electronics and Mannie Manim Productions
FAUST I and II © The Estate of Robert David Macdonald
Robert David MacDonald’s estate is represented by Alan Brodie Representation, London
Handspring Puppet Company is represented worldwide by Quaternaire / Sarah Ford
In memory of James Phillips (1959-1995)
Special thanks to the team at The Baxter Theatre Centre, William Kentridge Studio, Stefanie Carp, Carlo Daniels, Susan Ford, Paul Golub, Joël Gunzburger, Frie Leysen, Konstantinos Liopyris, Grace Lorenzo, Michael Morris, Herman Sorgeloos
With the support of the Ammodo Foundation




