The art form
Puppetry behind Simunye
Why Simunye is built on puppetry: what Handspring is, how puppets share a stage with actors, and what the director's billing tells you.
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Simunye is a puppetry, dance and music production, and its director is billed as an acclaimed Handspring puppeteer. Handspring is a Cape Town company known for Ubu and the Truth Commission and War Horse. The Victoria Falls Theatre Company presents Simunye, so the link is the director's craft, not the company itself.
Puppetry as theatre
Wikipedia defines puppetry as a form of theatre or performance that involves the manipulation of puppets, with puppeteers animating inanimate figures that are usually human or animal in form. It lists many kinds: hand or glove puppets, marionettes hung from strings, and rod puppets, which are made from a head attached to a central rod. Which kinds appear in Simunye on any night is up to the production, so this guide describes the art form rather than the programme. Puppetry is a broad theatre form with many styles, not a single one.
What Handspring is
Handspring Puppet Company is a South African puppetry performance and design company based in Cape Town. Its own website says it began in South Africa in the 1980s and has performed in 30 countries. Wikipedia names its founders as Adrian Kohler, Basil Jones, Jon Weinberg and Jill Joubert. The company calls itself a world leader in the art of puppetry, which is its own claim, and its productions have toured widely.
Where the director's billing comes from
The booking page says the show is directed by acclaimed Handspring puppeteer Mongiwekhaya, and the production's own site uses the same words. That is the whole connection the sources state. The Victoria Falls Theatre Company presents Simunye, and its cast are local professional artists, so this is a Victoria Falls production whose director is billed as a Handspring puppeteer. Treat the billing as a mark of craft, not as a claim that the Cape Town company made the show.
Ubu and the Truth Commission
An early landmark for Handspring is Ubu and the Truth Commission, created in 1997 with director William Kentridge and writer Jane Taylor. Live actors play Pa Ubu and Ma Ubu, while witnesses before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission appear as puppets, each worked by two puppeteers. Wikipedia records that the puppeteers are visible beside their figures, and that a three-headed dog, Brutus, has a separate manipulator for each head. The piece shows how puppets and actors can share one stage and carry serious stories for adult audiences.
War Horse
War Horse reached a far wider public. It premiered at the Royal National Theatre on 17 October 2007, and Wikipedia says each life-size horse puppet is operated by three actors. Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones received a Special Tony Award for the show in 2011. The photograph shows a scale model of Joey, the horse at the centre of the story: a skeleton of cane and metal ribs. It is a useful picture of how little a puppet needs to look alive, since movement and breath, not detail, do the work.
Puppets in the street
Puppetry in South Africa has not been confined to theatres. The photograph shows Puppets Against AIDS, a street performance in Cape Town in the 1980s, with large-headed puppets and a puppeteer playing to a crowd. One puppet plays a doctor in a white coat. The picture comes from a different company and a different decade, and it is not connected to Simunye. It is here to show that southern African audiences have long watched puppets used to tell stories and carry messages, in many settings.
What this means for your evening
Go to Simunye expecting a story told through several arts at once, with puppetry beside dance, music and visuals. The outline follows Bomani and his elephant friend Ndlovu, and the production names love and community as its message. Watch the performers as well as the figures: in Ubu and the Truth Commission, for example, the puppeteers stand visibly beside their figures. Which characters are puppets on your night is for you to find out in the theatre.
Frequently asked questions
Is Simunye made by Handspring?
No. The Victoria Falls Theatre Company presents it. The booking page says only that the director, Mongiwekhaya, is an acclaimed Handspring puppeteer.
What is Handspring best known for?
War Horse and Ubu and the Truth Commission. Wikipedia says War Horse premiered at the Royal National Theatre in 2007.
Sources