William Kentridge: Houseboy by Ferdinand OYONO

Based on the 1956 novel Une Vie de Boy by Cameroonian diplomat Ferdinand Oyono, the 120-minute-long performance is directed by Kentridge and explores themes of historical participation, archival memory, and post-colonial identity. Upending accounts of colonial history told by colonizers, Houseboy looks at the same period through the vantage-point of the colonized, specifically through the eyes of Toundi Ondoua who is forced to serve a colonial household. Oyono’s novel is told through Toundi’s diary and is unflinching in its account of an era full of contradictions, false promises, and crimes inflicted on the people of Cameroon.

South African performers are featured and a large charcoal drawing by Kentridge serves as the theatrical backdrop. Accompanied by live music and percussion, The Centre for the Less Good Idea’s staged interpretation of Oyono’s novel creates an immersive multimedia experience that muses on agency and trauma and directly folds into the artist’s multidisciplinary practice on view at The Broad.