De Pauw (Engels) - depot voor het VTi

josse de pauw
5. Lastly, Weg cannot be considered without reference to its
social-artistic environment. The need for a fixed working environment
is as important to De Pauw as his loyal selection of likeminded
artists. He started his fully professional career with
Radeis under the wing of Schaamte; twenty years later he was still
making pieces in that same establishment (though now repainted)
under its later name Kaaitheater. The decision, as from 1998, to
move first to Victoria and then to HetNet was one aided by the
fact that these were companies in whom he dared put his complete
trust. This is part of the essence of De Pauw’s survival strategy:
as an artist it is only in an open, supportive setting that he
can create with complete freedom those things he really wants to.
In the following chapters we shall try, on the basis of these five
paths, to form a clear view of the artistic choices on which Josse
De Pauw’s work has been built over the last twenty years. To this
end we shall refer to a number of key productions.
Playing, Lying and Radeis
‘The hardest thing about being an actor is understanding that
what you are acting is a confession about who you are. An actor
cannot do anything but act himself, and every role I play is part
of me. There is nothing human that is foreign to me, and that is
sometimes a reality that’s hard to bear.’ 2
Josse De Pauw is one of those actors whom you cannot ignore.
With his extraordinary presence – resolute and awkward at the
same time; rather ponderous and yet charming – he draws the
attention towards himself. And then he begins to act: without
words, like a cartoon, as in Radeis, or just the reverse, cautiously
chewing on every syllable of the lines he wants to speak. The
contrast is a false one, or rather, behind the apparent rift between
the two acting styles lies the same basic principle, the same
approach to the relationship between the person and the character.
In the above quotation De Pauw expresses his view of acting
very clearly: on stage you make a genuine confession about yourself,
because you cannot/must not hide yourself away as a human
being. As an actor you try to bring a role closer towards you, you
try to recognise yourself in the part in order then to invest in it.
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artistic development: de pauw’s way and weg
When De Pauw starts to speak, you first of all hear his own
voice. This explains the great importance he attaches to the
choice of writing, the sentences he has to articulate. Deception is
absolutely forbidden. Lying is allowed: that’s how one builds up
the fiction that makes theatre what it is. But it goes wrong when
the lie leaves no space for the reality of the space, the actors and
the audience; then the lying has become deceit. This man’s acting
is transparent and yet well-grounded, aloof from the character
yet not averse to a degree of pathos. It is perfectly acceptable that
the actor or narrator becomes engrossed in the lines he speaks,
the poetry or the story. It is only when the actor surrenders
entirely to the responsibility of the character, or hides behind hollow
scenery and costumes, that the spectator is made to look
foolish. ‘On a stage you represent something,’ says De Pauw,
‘and it must also be about your own ideas, even if it is by way of
Shakespeare. An actor should not hide behind the director or the
theatre’s artistic management.’ 3 This probably explains why De
Pauw is so emphatically choosy about the directing and the
organisation in which he works. To better understand this penchant
for freedom and responsibility in his acting, it is a good
idea to examine the decisive early period of De Pauw’s career.
Looking at the productions of the Radeis travelling theatre company
(1977-84), it becomes clear that being an actor is more than
a masked act with characters.
Radeis International grew initially out of a feeling of dissatisfaction
with the theatre establishment in the late seventies. Just like
the instructive ‘political’ theatre of the time, Radeis reacted
against the dullness, the lack of critical insight and the hierarchy
of the major repertory companies. As a group, Radeis functioned
without any hierarchic relationships and occasionally the organisations
were thrown open to other groups. Some of Radeis’
pieces also involved other play-makers (Erik De Volder), jugglers,
clowns, musicians (De Snaar); and just once Radeis undertook a
travelling project with other groups: Carte Blanche.
With such initiatives as Carte Blanche and the professionally
run Schaamte, Radeis went radically against the existing theatre
company structures.
From the very beginning Radeis resisted political theatre, which
after a period of bloom (including the international success of the
13 / Kritisch Theater Lexicon - 14 e - August 2001