Ever since Christopher Marlowe dramatized his misdeeds in the 16th Century, the unfortunate fellow who sold his soul to the devil in return for wealth of a more transitory nature has proved to be a pliable and poignant symbol of short-sightedness.
Dr. Faustus has been immortalized by Goethe and Gertrude Stein, outwitted on the silver screen, and (thanks to Randy Newman) he recently metamorphosed into a punkish Notre Dame undergraduate named Henry Faust, title character of a rock musical.
But for South African William Kentridge, the most Faustian arena is politics. Specifically, Kentridge sees a rich irony in the current expedient reconciliation of the oppressed in South Africa with those who were (until recently) doing most of the oppressing.
“It was very much a Faustian contract,” Kentridge says, “between different angels and devils. That moral paradox is what the new South Africa is based upon. We made a deal with the netherworld, and we have an ongoing contract with the devil.”
Kentridge is the director and originator of “Faustus in Africa,” a touring puppet version based on Goethe’s take on the old tale and produced by Johannesburg’s Handspring Puppet Company.
In this incarnation, Faustus takes the guise of a white colonialist who sells his soul to Mephisto, a black bureaucrat. As they did in Kentridge’s “Woyczek on the Highveld” (seen here in 1995), the life-size puppets share the stage with actors and a film backdrop.
“We use animated projections so we can display people’s unconscious thoughts,” Kentridge says. “As an audience you watch a double performance — you see the actor manipulating the puppet, but you also believe in what the puppet is doing. There’s pleasure in allowing yourself to be fooled by a piece of wood.”
Dr. Faustus would surely have sympathized.
———-
“Faustus in Africa” plays through April 13 only at the Athenaeum Theatre, 2936 N. Southport Ave. For more information, call 773-PAC-LINE (773-722-5463).
