Starting its work in 1996, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission sought to set up a framework that would allow the perpetrators of torture and killings committed in the name of political belief, whether for or against apartheid, to come forward and offer up the names of victims and precise details of method and body disposal in exchange for amnesty. The controversial aspect of this premise was that killers, while finally identifying themselves after years of silence, might well go free.
Thus, the central paradox of the outcomes of the TRC decisions was that while the country may have learned the truth, it did not receive justice. Says artist William Kentridge, “I’m sure it was the only solution that could be found, but the consequence was infinite non-culpability. There were to be no Nuremberg Trials, and villains could sail off into the sunset.”
This was the Faustian deal negotiated by the National Party and the African National Congress as part of the handover of power from the white minority to the black majority before the first democratic elections could go forward. The irony implicit in this deal was not lost on the country, and to offset this, commissioners of the highest moral standing under the direction of Archbishop Desmond Tutu were chosen.
The proceedings of the TRC became intently watched by the entire country. Recalling the evidence of white security policeman Dirk Coetzee, Kentridge says, “He said he came home every day stinking of blood and dynamite from blowing up bodies. His wife was worried, because immediately after he came home he would shower and she thought that he was having an affair with another woman and was showering to get rid of the smell of that other woman.”
Coetzee’s testimony was one of those woven into the theatrical work Ubu and the Truth Commission (1997), a production by Kentridge, writer Jane Taylor, and the Handspring Puppet Company’s Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones, which adapted French playwright Alfred Jarry’s 1888 play Ubu Roi to reflect the goings-on at the TRC. Kentridge served as director and also designed puppets that were carved and animated by the Handspring Puppet Company. Animated drawings by Kentridge and excerpts from news footage were screened as backdrops to the live action of the performers and the puppets on stage.
Kentridge found that the plot had a local relevance wherever the production of Ubu was shown: “When we did it in Germany it was the time that all the Stasi files were being opened, so they said, ‘For us it makes so much sense.’ In France it raised the whole question of French collaboration during World War II.”
The Kentridge/Handspring/Taylor version of Ubu may be set in a distinctively South African setting, but it has held up over time as a mirror to the world.
Scene from Ubu and the Truth Commission 1997
Theatrical production
Photographer: Ruphyn Coudyzer
© William Kentridge and Handspring Puppet Company
Ubu Tells the Truth: Act II, Scene 1 1996–97
Portfolio of 8 etchings
Hardground, softground, aquatint, drypoint, and engraving on paper
Image size: 25 x 30 cm
Printed by Caversham Press, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa
Courtesy of Gallery Schlesinger, New York
© William Kentridge