Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) is revered as one of the most influential poets of all time, considered the original enfant terrible of Western literature; a child genius of 19th century literature.
He crammed the body of his work into a few intense years of writing, his first poem crafted at the age of 16. At the equally tender age of 21 he abandoned his work as a poet to pursue a life of travel through Europe and ended up in Africa as a trader before returning to France where, after ailing for years but misdiagnosed, he succumbed to cancer at the age of 37.
As a man of letters he created one of the most formidable cultural legacies with the likes of luminaries such as Dylan Thomas, Bob Dylan, André Breton, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Jack Kerouac, Vladimir Nabokov, Patti Smith, Henry Miller and Van Morrison all inspired by his poetry.
It must be a challenge, considering the immense body of work that already exists in the form of music, film and opera, to do further justice to Rimbaud, but The Alchemy of Words, a collaboration between writer and artist Naomi van Niekerk, puppet designer Yoann Pencolé and musician Arnaud van Vliet, proved a magical experience at the Grahamstown National Arts Festival a few months ago.
The good news is that the production is on tour and comes to Cape Town on October 5 and 6, when it will be performed as part of the Cape Town Fringe Festival at the Theatre Arts Admin Collective in Observatory.
In the ethereal production you can watch Van Niekerk as she stands at a light desk and, with the simple but effective use of tools such as sand, a comb, drops of ink and transparencies, paints beautiful pictures that are screened overhead, as the alchemy of the words of Rimbaud’s poetry are expressively translated by Van Vliet to melodious and haunting songs, while Pencolé alternates between reading some of the poems in French and moving two puppets atop a wall.
Rimbaud was a master in envisaging what he wrote - from golden wheat fields to the lushness of the Ardennes countryside where he grew up, to the sea, changing in colour from moody grey to a deep blue to a sun-reflected red.
One of his greatest poems, Le Bateau ivre (The Drunken Boat), is evocatively translated for the stage, and describes the drifting and sinking of a boat lost at sea, awash with vivid imagery and symbolism.
Van Niekerk said the collaboration between the three has an “interesting back story”.
“Yoann and I studied together in France for three years. I got a scholarship to go to the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts de la Marionnette (National Puppetry School in France). There was a very strict selection process and it’s located in Charleville-Mézière in the Ardennes.
“I was there from 2008 to 2010 and it was an experience that changed my life. It’s where Rimbaud was born - so everybody who lives there knows a poem or two by him,” she said.
Van Niekerk worked with Van Vliet last year on Kontinuum in Grahamstown; she and Van Vliet have a performance collective, Drysand, that was founded by the pair in 2013.
Their contemplative cross-disciplinary work combining poetry, animation, puppetry and music came to the attention of the French cultural attaché Marion Claudel, who commissioned a work on the French poet.
Van Niekerk said: “We were going to do a piece on Rimbaud and South African poets along the theme of exile, but Arnaud fell in love with Rimbaud’s poetry and we decided to just use his work.
“Kontinuum was along a similar theme, showcasing the work of Afrikaans poets in which I also worked on a light desk.”
She added: “Then Yoann came on board and we skyped several times. I was keen to engage him as he’s pretty versatile and it was just a question of finding a place in the production for the puppets, as Arnaud had already selected all the songs and the music, so we just needed to get it all together. And we didn’t want to alienate people - we wanted to lure people to poetry, and through puppetry it connects them.”
Although many of Rimbaud’s poems and letters describe his anguish from an unsettled life, notably The Alchemy of the Word, from which this production takes it name, much of what he writes portrays a sense of hope and almost contentedness.
In today’s troubled times it’s reassuring to find that young creative folk, such as this talented trio, portray optimism with a touch of melancholy in such a charming and clever way.
* The Alchemy of Words is part of the Cape Town Fringe Festival and takes place at the Theatre Arts Admin Collective in Observatory on October 5
at 6pm and October 6 at 8pm.
See www.capetownfringe.co.za or call 0860 002 004. Tickets are R100 or R90 concession, and the play is suitable for children from grades 4 to 12.