De Pauw (Engels) - depot voor het VTi

JOSSE DE PAUW 

BY 

JEF AERTS AND ANNE-MARIE VAN WIJNSBERGHE 

KRITISCH THEATER LEXICON 

VLAAMS THEATER INSTITUUT 

2001

the critical theatre lexicon is a series of portraits of 

major dramatic artists of the twentieth century. 

these portraits are commissioned by the vlaams theater 

instituut and the four flemish universities: u.i.antwerp, 

university of ghent, k.u.leuven & v.u.brussels. this 

publication forms part of an all-embracing historical 

project on the performing arts in flanders in the 

twentieth century. the editorial board comprises theatre 

academics from the four universities and people from the 

theatre world. publication started in september 1996. 

THE STORY OF JOSSE DE PAUW 

As an introduction to an extract from Cesare Pavese’ Conversations 

with Leuco, Josse De Pauw once outlined his relationship 

with urban living: ‘I advance step by step, and sometimes take a 

step backwards because something moved in the undergrowth. 

Life ambles past me at my tempo and I become for a moment part 

of every shop window I pass. Later, night will fall and everything 

that cannot or does not want to sleep ambles on. The dark brings 

inquisitiveness. The arguments are fiercer, and the loving too. 

And questions are asked. The answers are for tomorrow, in daylight, 

when the others again see things completely clearly again.’ 1 

Step by step and sometimes a step backwards: it is not hard to 

uncover an artistic credo here in the artist’s walking pace, and it 

comes as no surprise that De Pauw also used this quotation in 

2000 as a foreword to the programme of his first season as artistic 

head of HetNet in Brugge. When we examine De Pauw’s 

career, the concern for maintaining his own rhythm, and the 

inquisitive wanderings among the arts along paths that have been 

made passable by his own (or a friendly) hand, may be the most 

significant node from which his artistic work emerges. It is striking, 

for example, that since the founding of Radeis in 1977, he 

has hardly ever worked in an ‘ordinary play’ directed in an ‘ordinary 

way’. And when it did occur, it was on his own ground 

and/or with people in whom he trusted absolutely (e.g. Exiles, 

1993, directed by Peter Van Kraaij for Kaaitheater). Josse De 

Pauw likes to work close to his own self, and preferably in an 

organisational setting that he himself chooses (Schaamte, 

Kaaitheater, Laagland, HetNet), with like-minded artists and in 

a stimulating environment (Brussels). From this warm nest the 

creative journey can commence. Despite being such a home-lover 

and having such a need to repeatedly rediscover the same people 

and places, the seeker and traveller’s eye also makes its appearance 

in De Pauw’s work. Wandering around the world, or in an 

image of this world, is usually the precursor of the actual artistic 

work. The medium chosen is of less importance: De Pauw is just 

as active in theatre, film and literature. 

Josse De Pauw progresses through his own stage history step 

by step, but never without ‘sometimes a step backwards’ where- 

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josse de pauw 

by the past is involved in the future. It is not without reason that 

such fine curves become visible in this artist’s highly diverse 

work. Before taking a closer look at these patterns, it is worth 

giving a chronological overview of several biographical facts. 

The major productions and organisations will be covered in 

greater depth in the relevant chapters. 

Josse De Pauw was born in Asse on 15 th March 1952. After secondary 

school he did not really know in which direction to go. 

Neither the plays performed by the school dramatic group and 

the youth movement, nor the recitation lessons given by Mandus 

De Vos at the local academy of music had aroused a desire to 

become a professional actor. Indecisive, he went on several journeys 

and worked for some time for a solicitor, until other people 

persuaded him to enrol at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels. 

During his course in the Dramatic Arts (1971-75) he performed 

in several productions by the Mechelse Miniatuur Theater (with 

Mandus De Vos, among others) and as soon as he had graduated 

he ended up at the BKT, where Eva Bal was also working. 

The sculptor and set designer Pat van Hemelrijck, a friend from 

De Pauw’s youth, shared his dissatisfaction with the theatre of the 

time and together they dreamed of creating street-theatre on the 

road. In spring 1977 they were commissioned to make their first 

play by the Mallemunt music and entertainment festival. Initially 

accompanied by Erik De Volder and Jan De Bruyne, and later by 

Dirk Pauwels and Georges Brouckaert, the Radeis company 

rolled its way around village squares, parks, streets, festivals and 

schools and soon found its way to international venues too. They 

received substantial back-up in this from the Schaamte artists’ collective 

and the Kaaitheater Festival, headed by Hugo De Greef. A 

whole series of Radeis productions followed, all with a fragmentary 

structure within which the chief element was an original, pioneering 

non-verbal entertainment. The group finally closed its 

books after the Olympic Arts Festival in Los Angeles in 1984. 

One year later, in 1985, Josse De Pauw brought out his own 

theatre project called Usurpation, which he performed together 

with Mieke Verdin and the musicians Peter Vermeersch and 

Danny Van Hoeck. After seven years of wordless theatre he 

introduced his own writing for the first time. Furthermore, music 

now also played a major part. Usurpation was the pivotal point 

in his search for a bridge between the legacy of Radeis and the 

rest of his stage career. 

6/ Kritisch Theater Lexicon - 14 e - August 2001 

the story of josse de pauw 

During this period, De Pauw also acted in a visualisation of 

Dylan Thomas’ radio play Under Milk Wood (1987) by the 

Dutch company Orkater, and in Jan Decorte’s Het Stuk-Stuk 

(1986) and In Ondertussendoor (1987). The medium of film 

inspired him to continue exploring the writing abilities first 

apparent in Usurpation. In 1986 he met the young film-maker 

Peter Van Kraaij during a course in scenario-writing. Together 

they created the feature-length film Vinaya, which was brought 

out in 1992 but was given hardly any chance on the commercial 

circuit. 

The artistic alliance of De Pauw and Van Kraaij developed on 

the stage too. They together created Ward Comblez. He do the 

life in different voices (1989) and Het Kind van de Smid (1990), 

both produced by the Kaaitheater. Initially, Van Kraaij concentrated 

on introducing some order into the writing De Pauw provided 

him with, but for the second piece he also wrote material 

himself. In 1991 Josse De Pauw was awarded the three-yearly 

State Prize for Playwriting. 

De Pauw also remained true to his permanent home at the 

Kaaitheater. He acted, for example, in Eric Rohmer’s Trio in B 

flat (1991), directed by Jan Ritsema, and the following season he 

wrote and acted in De Meid Slaan together with the Dutch actor, 

director and writer Tom Jansen. In 1993 he also played the part 

of Richard Rowan in James Joyce’s only play, Exiles, directed by 

Peter Van Kraaij. In 1995 he performed Chantal Akermans’ solo 

piece De Verhuizing, directed by Jürgen Gosch, and in early 1998 

this was followed by Wolokolamsker Chaussee I-V after Heiner 

Müller (a coproduction with Theater Antigone in Kortrijk). 

Two years after De Meid Slaan, De Pauw and Jansen decided 

to set up an interdisciplinary working structure of their own, 

called Laagland. The main principles they put forward were language, 

simplicity and acting pleasure. In 1995, in their first 

Laagland production, Trots Vlees, an adaptation of James 

Purdy’s Clearing in the forest, they extended the theme of friendship 

which they had first broached in De Meid Slaan. 

For the 1998 Kaaitheater production Weg, De Pauw renewed 

his contact with Peter Vermeersch. Just as in his first play, 

Usurpation, the ties between acting, language and music were 

drawn exceptionally tightly. The piece was extremely well 

received by the public and the press and was also selected for the 

1999 Dutch-Flemish Theatre Festival. 


josse de pauw 

The 1998 season provided a major break in De Pauw’s career. 

Weg was not only both a moment of coagulation and a new start 

in his artistic work, as we shall show later, but after this production 

De Pauw also brought his years of collaboration with the 

Kaaitheater to an end. After the departure of Hugo De Greef, 

who would later work in Bruges, De Pauw also decided it was 

about time he looked around elsewhere. In 1999 he ended up at 

Victoria, the theatre production company in Ghent, which was 

headed by his former Radeis colleague Dirk Pauwels. 

After a series of interim presentations in front of an audience, 

in spring 2000 he completed the music-theatre production Larf. 

With three actors (De Pauw, Tom Jansen and Dirk Roofthooft) 

on stage, accompanied by the sculptor Koenraad Tinel and a 

proper big band (including Peter Vermeersch and Roland Van 

Campenhout), this was his largest-scale production to date. In 

Larf, the achievements of Weg were further distilled and focused. 

On 20 th November 2000 he was awarded the prestigious Océ 

Podium Prize for the two productions. 

After spending two years at Victoria, from autumn 2000 De 

Pauw was granted the responsibility for a company of his own. 

At the request of Hugo De Greef, he took over the artistic leadership 

of Theater De Korre, which, after the departure of his predecessor 

Bob De Moor, was renamed HetNet. In addition to 

reruns of Weg and Larf, the first season included two youth productions 

directed by De Pauw (Charlotte Mutsaers’ Cheese! and 

his own piece Ubung) and a series of compilation evenings 

(Sproken). 

In directing these two pieces he clearly gave a little more shape 

to the previously barely definable persona of Josse De Pauw the 

stage director. At one point in the past he had coached the then 

very new actors’ company Stan in Jan, scènes uit het leven op het 

land (1989) and Brigitje (1991). He saw himself rather as a guide 

or a privileged spectator than as a director. De vrouwen, a coproduction 

by Kaaitheater and NTG, in which De Pauw was to have 

ventured fully into directing, was cancelled. 

To limit Josse De Pauw’s artistry to his stage work would do 

less than justice to his artistic versatility; he is an actor, playmaker, 

film-maker and writer. Over the years he has made a 

name for himself as an actor in the film, television and video circuits. 

Among the public at large, he is best known for his parts 

in the feature films De Stille Oceaan (Digna Sinke, 1983), Skin 

8/ Kritisch Theater Lexicon - 14 e - August 2001 

the story of josse de pauw 

(Guido Henderickx, 1986), Crazy Love (Dominique Deruddere, 

1987), Sailors don’t cry (Marc Didden, 1988), Just Friends (Marc- 

Henri Wajnberg, 1993), Hombres Complicados (Dominique 

Deruddere, 1997), S (Guido Henderickx, 1998) and Iedereen 

Beroemd (Dominique Deruddere, 2000). In addition, apart from 

plays (including one play for young people, called Zetelkat, the 

first performances of which were given by Luxemburg in 1999) 

and film scenarios, he also writes songs (the libretto for De 

Oplosbare Vis (1994) by the Walpurgis Ensemble and fragments 

of text for Momentum (1994) by the Blindman Quartet), stories 

and articles with a very personal approach for newspapers and 

magazines (including De Standaard and Humo). In autumn 2000 

Houtekiet published the hefty volume Werk, which gathers 

together virtually all De Pauw’s writings over the last ten years. 


ARTISTIC DEVELOPMENT: 

DE PAUW’S WAY AND WEG 

June 1998. Josse De Pauw and Peter Vermeersch perform the 

music-theatre project Weg in the Kaaitheater Studios. Two musicians 

(Peter Vermeersch and Pierre Vervloesem) and one actor 

occupy the stage and present an intimate theatrical concert. De 

Pauw uses words, stories and the cadences of speech, the two 

musicians use melancholy, jazzy, sometimes folky melodies and 

rhythms. De Pauw is not just an actor, but one of the players in 

this construction in language, sounds and music for three voices. 

By way of the life story of one son (Jos) we hear the outpourings 

of the family life of two generations, focusing alternately on the 

mothers, fathers and children (with their birth being the first step 

towards an identity of their own). Events in everyday contacts are 

mixed with poetical journeys in a more fictional world of the 

imagination. Melancholy, happiness and a cheerful sorrow alternate 

with each other, as for example in the narrator’s confession 

after his marriage: ‘We lived a long time together… not as happily 

as we had thought. Hoped. But hope is a habit to be overcome. 

It was good. Or rather, it was what it was.’ The language-oriented 

construction of De Pauw’s narration is striking, as he constantly 

interacts with the music in his flow of images, conspicuous 

repetitions (‘Ask your dad’) and melodious speech (occasionally 

running away into melancholic song). Sometimes they complement 

each other, or alternate, are meticulously interwoven or 

drown each other out as if in an intense musical conversation. 

Weg turned out in various respects to be a point of coagulation 

– let’s call it a rounding up – of De Pauw’s artistic career. In this 

small-scale production several threads that had unwound 

throughout his work were knotted together into a whole. In 

addition, it also contains the seeds of the future: Weg is equally 

the precursor of Larf and the work De Pauw wants to do in 

Bruges. In any case, it forms a handy starting point from which 

to take each of the paths we intend to follow in the course of this 

book. Here is a short summary: 

1. First there was acting, and only then theatre. Although De 

Pauw had been through a complete evolution in using language 

on stage, the same view of acting shone through both the non- 

10 / Kritisch Theater Lexicon - 14 e - August 2001 

artistic development: de pauw’s way and weg 

verbal Radeis pieces and the flow of words in Ward Comblez. 

Weg is also marked by this form of acting. Josse De Pauw stands 

at the microphone and starts to tell his story. He uses several registers, 

voices and points of view: as a narrator, poet, entertainer 

or melancholic, he uses a dialect, a combination of a sort of 

housing estate Flemish and the standard language. De Pauw himself 

remains absent. Although he allows himself to be carried 

along by the stories and the physical aesthetics of the language, 

he himself remains visible. This means the distinction between 

narrator and character or actor and human being is constantly 

being displayed and then smoothed away again. 

2. Weg is based entirely on the alliance between music, language 

and theatre. It is both jazz with words and words set to 

jazz. The border area between the musicality of the composition 

and that of the verbality (rhythm, intonation, timbre, poetry, 

speech, pitch, etc.) is very consciously explored. In this respect 

there are two important aspects: the physical qualities of the 

script (or formless sounds) as a full part of a (musical) composition, 

and the particular form of performance in which this takes 

place. Josse De Pauw likes entering into confrontation with musicians 

on stage and inserting himself as an actor into the musicians’ 

concert (or improvisational ensemble). 

3. Journeys and travellers form a key element in De Pauw’s 

work. It can just as easily be about geographical restlessness and 

migration as about the journey as a metaphor for departure, 

parting or waiting for a return. The many layers of meaning in 

the title are thoroughly explored. Among the things we see are 

the ‘weg’ [path] that refers to the life-path, the country road, 

departure, intervention in time, parting, the empty space, etc. 

This constant in the content of the performance is accompanied 

by a certain expression of form. De Pauw often employs his narration 

(both verbally and purely visually) to evoke images of his 

characters’ actual or imagined journeys. The actor, the person 

and the story merge into one in the figure of the narrator. 

4. Weg is not the first production set up by the De Pauw and 

Vermeersch duo. Among other things, they collaborated on 

Usurpation, Ward Comblez and Walpurgis’ musical theatre production 

De Oplosbare Vis. This would later be followed by Larf. 

The decision to repeatedly put on new productions with the same 

people, once fruitful cooperation has turned out to be possible, 

is one of the foundations of De Pauw’s work. 

11 / Kritisch Theater Lexicon - 14 e - August 2001

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. 



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 


josse de pauw 

Internationale Nieuwe Scene) was dismissed as putting too much 

emphasis on the ‘message’, and as too single-minded and serious. 

For that matter, several of these companies were themselves soon 

to end up at the heart of the renewal and redefine their instructional 

function: e.g. Het Trojaanse Paard led by Jan Decorte and 

De Mannen van den Dam with Herman Gilis. 

At the end of the seventies a lively amalgam of political theatre 

collectives and small alternative groups worked on the margins 

of the repertory and chamber theatre scene, and they travelled 

round with shows full of clowning, performance and object theatre. 

This was the sort of theatre that was seen on circuits like that 

of the Shaffy Theatre and the alternative Mickery in Amsterdam. 

The main focus was an examination of the basis underlying theatre 

and acting conventions and the relationship with the audience. 

Sincere communication with a broad public was once again 

considered fundamental. One international festival, the Festival 

of Fools (1980) organised by the superclown and jester Django 

Edwards in Amsterdam, tried to allow theatre to function once 

again as a feast and game of fools and push the message-based, 

doctrinal political theatre aside. It was at this festival that Radeis’ 

international career began. 

The history of the group is above all the story of an artistic 

friendship between four young men with a shared dream: to see 

the world. In order to be understood outside the Low Countries, 

they decided to make theatre without words. Yet it was not the 

collective’s intention to make mime performances (at that time a 

lot of theatre people were going to Paris to take lessons at 

Jacques Lecocq’s school). Radeis developed an hilarious language 

entirely its own which functioned as a whimsical sound setting 

for the action. The basis of Radeis’ pieces lay in the intermezzi 

and lazzi of the Commedia dell’arte, clown acts and popular 

variety theatre. The performances were put together like a revue 

with alternating gags and intermezzi. Radeis’ basic characters 

remained largely the same in the various productions: Dirk 

Pauwels as the poor, likeable soul in swimming trunks, the eternal 

victim of unfolding events; Pat van Hemelrijck as the stooge, 

or constantly busy manipulating objects; Josse De Pauw as the 

‘little man’ in the overall and the wonky hat (his appearance is 

sometimes reminiscent of Jef Cassiers, whom he greatly 



admired), at first the instigator, and then the one with the payoff, 

or the star of the one-man show who rambles stoned across 

the stage. The actors did not always disappear behind their characters, 

were not always one with their act and themselves regarded 

with suspicion or resignation the next theatrical situation that 

would overcome them and make victims of them. This double 

awareness enhanced the comic effect but at the same time made 

it possible for the spectator to see the whole stage setting as a 

theatrical construct which the actors and characters experienced 

as a sort of absurd, divine body. What started with the casual trying 

of a penny-whistle became the buzzing of a mosquito, which 

then had to be located. It became completely hilarious when they 

all tried to kill the mosquito with a fly-swatter – for which purpose 

the mosquito had to keep still (meaning that no sound was 

allowed to be made by the whistle) – but did not succeed because 

no one could keep from blowing. The demonstrable source of the 

plague of mosquitoes was visible on stage (the whistle), but the 

stage reality remained stronger than level-headed analysis and 

was therefore irreversible. The obsessional forgetting of the theatrical 

cause and the imperturbable persistence with the same act 

led, paradoxically enough, to a feeling of real time in the performance. 

Its duration and tenacity meant that the act tumbled from 

fiction into real time. 

Radeis characters were frequently the victims of a world governed 

by theatrical codes and conditions which they took seriously 

in an absurd way, even when they had created them themselves. 

In the end, the picaresque inventiveness and frivolity with 

which these little people tried to remain upright in this world was 

also what always made them ‘survivors’. Faced with the world 

outside they continued to react in a theatrical way (e.g. by taking 

the notion of a praatpaal [talking post: motorway telephone] literally; 

by staying the night next to a parking meter). Real time in 

the show and theatrical inventiveness in the world outside. 

Many of the elements of Radeis’ visual theatre refer to typical 

elements from the circus, cartoons (exaggeration, absurd payoff) 

and variety theatre. The typical ingredients of variety were 

often not performed, but quoted or shown with deliberate clumsiness: 

in crudely overaccentuated tear-jerkers, frivolous movements, 

exaggerated scene changes, etc. This meant the ingredi- 


josse de pauw 

ents themselves sometimes came across as grotesque, rather than 

their effects (e.g. the scene changes in Radeis wegens ziekte). 

In addition to the non-verbal material and the variety tradition, 

Radeis opted for a highly specific humorous approach. The 

absurd situations, drawn randomly from life, often gave shape to 

minor examples of universally recognisable objectionable behaviour. 

The humour arose when over-familiar topics or objects 

were suddenly deposited in the surprising context of the gag. 

However, Radeis’ main concern was not to get as many people 

laughing as possible; what was much more important to them 

was what the audience were laughing at. 

Once again, lasting research was more important than quick 

success. The rhythm and timing of the visual and/or musical 

humour played a decisive part. Not the quickfire gag that cuts 

through everything on its way to the target, but the slowly built 

pay-off. In their quest for laughter they preferred to advance as 

slowly as possible, because the slower the jaw muscles opened, 

the more powerful the humour. Quick, sharp pay-offs conceal 

the trouble that leads to virtuosity and honest dealing with the 

audience. According to Josse De Pauw this slowness was essential 

to Radeis’ work. ‘Speed is often an obligatory way of handling 

humour,’ he says. ‘One exacts respect from the audience by 

sheer force.’ 4 

Another pillar of Radeis’ performances was the importance of 

the set and the props. The dressing of the stage was never simply 

a background, but always actually participated in the action. 

Here too a certain evolution was discernible in the way the actors 

approached the objects. Whereas in the initial shows the objects 

invariably took centre stage and the action revolved entirely 

round the set (Radeis wegens ziekte), the attention gradually 

shifted towards the involvement of the objects in the acting. They 

no longer functioned as gadgets, but became things with an independent 

life, object-actors that entered into dialogue with the 

actors who manipulated them (Echafaudages). 

The unique thing about Radeis was that its members worked in 

different disciplines: a trained actor (Josse De Pauw), a sculptor 

(Pat van Hemelrijck), a mime-artist and ceramist (Dirk Pauwels) 

and an engineer and cabaret artiste (Jan De Bruyne), who was 



later replaced by a photographer and technician (Georges 

Brouckaert). Each member had his own speciality within this 

non-hierarchical structure and was responsible for it. In fact this 

quartet made several sorties into other media: they wrote a series 

of short films (L’Union fait la Force, 1982), worked on television 

programmes for Belgian, Dutch and German broadcasters (3 

Short Movies for Belgian Television), designed a number of theatrical 

cartoons for Viewmaster, tinkered with a photo-novel and 

even recorded a single (Praten met jou/Fietsen op de heide). 

Radeis did not put on high-flown theatre packed full of political 

posturing or heavyweight philosophy. Their theatre was 

intended to be without pretension, ‘with not too much fuss’. This 

‘new variety’, as Johan Wambacq described their work, 5 was naturally 

not completely noncommittal (the later productions had a 

clear theme), but Radeis insisted that the audience was free to 

interpret the performances (or not) as they wished. Or, as it was 

so expressively put on the programme sheet for Echafaudages, ‘I 

know there is something in it,’ said the man. He opened his wife’s 

shopping bag, and yes: a pound of bacon, six eggs and a bottle 

of still water. It was for him to choose.’ 

Radeis made its debut in 1977 with Sirkus Radeis, an independent 

production by the Beursschouwburg for the Mallemunt festival. 

On a highly-coloured, self-designed old-style bandstand, 

the performers put on a popular show as a tribute to real circus 

artists. Despite its success, the group was soon forced to switch 

to making productions for theatres because of the unreliable 

Belgian weather and the low financial yield from street-theatre. 

In this sense, Radeis wegens ziekte, theater zonder veel cinema 

(1978-81) was their first ‘real’ production. The circus ring was 

replaced by the archetypical interior of the Flemish country cottage. 

The set here made its resolute entrance as an additional 

actor. The props danced across the stage in all directions and 

combinations. Four men sat at the table, stood waiting, cleaned 

or moved in various configurations on the stage. At the beginning, 

much play was made of the length of the performance. It 

was in this piece that the actors came closest to the real time of 

a performance. The (deliberate) dullness and clumsiness were 

thematised, in a staged radio talk by Wim Van Gansbeke [a theatre 

critic] who prematurely announced the end of the show 


josse de pauw 

(whereby the build-up of tension focused mainly on the passage 

of time). In addition to these quite new (meta-theatrical) elements, 

there were also a considerable number of constituents 

from the world of cartoons (e.g. an immensely long arm that 

crawled over the stage) and parodic variants on variety theatre 

(e.g. catch and acrobatic numbers, puppet numbers, dance and 

music numbers). Radeis wegens ziekte was a chain of more or 

less separate absurdities whose main connection was the set. The 

agency behind all this absurdity was also written into the performance. 

Is it the four directors who sit in their film-set chairs at 

the end? Or the implacable voice that shouted where the actors 

had to drag parts of the scenery: ‘Attention. Position K2. 

Interior: upstage middle. Position K1. Interior: 30° left, position 

K2. Position K3. As arranged.’ 

The next production, Ik wist niet dat Engeland zo mooi was 

(1979-83) was invited to the Amsterdam Festival of Fools and 

from there took off internationally (with an adapted title: I didn’t 

know the continent was so beautiful). Whereas it was hardly possible 

to distil any theme out of Radeis wegens ziekte, in its successor 

the group was more focused on a goal. This production no 

longer consisted of a series of numbers quite separate from each 

other, but was a more or less coherent whole: four holiday-makers 

who end up in cheerless surroundings fill it up in no time at 

all with things that can be used to make jokes. The piece 

arranged fairly classical acts as intermezzi (2 clowns, acrobats, 

megaphone band, etc.) in a basic structure that combined variants 

on variety (striptease, Hawaiian dance) with a surprising 

series of absurdities. There is a permanent humorous contradiction 

between events on stage and the very clear frame of reference 

(holiday-makers). In the booklet The Flemish Theatre and 

the work of Radeis, Carlos Tindemans described the piece as ‘A 

clown’s work of high level, homogeneous from concept to structure’. 

6 Frivolous meta-theatricality remained a trade mark of 

Radeis in this piece too. It was not by chance that the performance 

ended with several words (spoken by Josse De Pauw): ‘La 

mare. Teatro esperimentale’. 

Gag-o-matic (1979-80) was not really a theatre production, rather 

a sort of travelling exhibition, a peepshow, made out of the sets of 

the previous productions and specially intended for fairs and such- 



like. The actors’ performance was reduced to minimal proportions, 

and in fact they became the invisible manipulators of a 

miniaturised theatre of objects. The spectators could peep at about 

fifty miniature scenes through peepholes. 

Radeis once more increased their dramatic unity in the last but 

one production Vogels [Birds] (1981-84). The successive situation 

sketches formed a proper mini-story with a beginning, middle 

and end. The acting area was filled by an immense birdcage. 

A small bird-being suddenly hatched from a giant egg and was 

soon seeking freedom. Two other birds, who had lived in the 

cage for some time, followed the newcomer when it escaped. 

After an enjoyable exploratory trip (full of nonsensical jokes) 

they return to the cage. The youngest bird-being has had slightly 

too much enjoyment from his freedom and has to be punished 

(by having an egg smashed on his head: another clown act). 

Although Radeis prided themselves on not appearing moralistic, 

in this case it was more difficult to ignore the direct symbolism. 

The synthesis of Radeis’ work and at the same time the end of its 

artistic career was Echafaudages (first version 1981, second 

1983). In the second version in particular, this piece followed a 

logical, coherent pattern. The group now introduced a clear 

social discourse, regarding the relationship between worker and 

machine. The action was set on a building site, near some scaffolding. 

Even before the working day began, the work area was 

brought to life by invisible hands: machines made strange 

sounds, a trestle went for a short walk, etc. Then the actors 

themselves made their entrance, as workers. The machines are 

caressed, lamps light up when they are stroked, a circular saw 

roars for its breakfast, two machines enter into a jealous duel for 

attention and love. After this confrontation with their equipment, 

the workers direct their energy at each other. In this way 

they escape the dreary reality in all kinds of games and fantasies. 

At the end the workers form a protest march with an odd solidarity, 

and march lame and stumbling towards the audience with 

the red flag raised. In this play, the act of communication with 

the props reaches a peak. The actors manipulated the objects in 

such a way that with only minuscule movements they began to 

lead a life of their own. All at once the smallness of the animated 

objects became the centre of the action. 


josse de pauw 

Radeis performed in twenty-four countries (at Caracas, Avignon, 

Los Angeles, etc.) until they decided to stop in 1984. The members 

wanted, in this way, to avoid lapsing into routine. This success 

story was brought to an end after the festival in Los Angeles. 

Despite the fact that Radeis had developed into a major Belgian 

export product, appearing on many international stages, the 

company never received any direct subsidy. As an experimental 

group, they did not fit into the norms of the 1975 theatre act, 

since they only had one professional actor. In May 1978 Hugo 

De Greef set up Schaamte together with Radeis, and other artists 

and groups immediately joined them. This working structure was 

in the first place intended to offer a basis (financial, among other 

things) onto which performing artists could fall back or from 

where they could take off in their artistic projects. We shall 

return to Schaamte’s work more extensively later. 

Several main elements can be pointed out with regard to Radeis’ 

influence on De Pauw’s later work and especially on his acting: 

to start with, there was the enormous desire for freedom that led 

to the Radeis actors working on stage. They acted free of the prevailing 

theatre tradition, boundaries between disciplines and 

even the language barrier. Of all the players, only De Pauw had 

had professional training for the theatre. 

The non-hierarchical form of working was also crucial; the 

mutually reinforcing desires of four people from which Radeis’ 

theatre was born. They were attuned to each other like jazz musicians. 

For De Pauw, collaboration on the basis of a healthy dose 

of ‘complicité’ and playfulness remained an important prerequisite 

for making plays in his later career. The conversation with 

several voices but no clearly apparent central focus also turned 

up again later as the non-hierarchical structure of his performances 

and writings. 

For Radeis, the relationship with the audience took absolute priority: 

the audience was an essential protagonist. Although the 

succession of gags and frivolous and absurd situations had a 

humorous effect, the player’s main intention was to make the 

spectator reflect on the reason for this jollity. This was done, 

among other ways, by playing with the factor of time. By sophisticated 

timing (slow, often repetitive), low-key humour and subtle 



irony they built up the tension in the audience. Just as Josse De 

Pauw was to do in his later plays, they were guarded in unfolding 

a particular item. The employment of a double consciousness 

(person/character) among the actors and audience was ahead of 

innovations in acting that came in the course of the eighties. 

This matter of making the rhythm tangible so as to deepen the 

spectator’s vision led to another aspect: the sensory. The Radeis 

actors juggled and talked to real objects, just as De Pauw was to 

do later with the props that had been transformed into language 

in the world of his imagination. Radeis’ acting was born out of 

the same quest for authenticity which is constantly present in De 

Pauw’s work. The experience of the authentic arises from the 

actor’s honesty to the spectator, whom he does not underestimate, 

and whereby, most importantly, he does not allow himself 

to be tied down by ill-considered words (or a superfluous set). 

When jazz combines with words: Usurpation 

Josse De Pauw only allowed the spoken word to seep very gradually 

into his work as an independent play-maker. After eight 

years of making wordless plays with Radeis, the epic narrator 

who appeared in Ward Comblez or the chattering actor in De 

Meid Slaan needed a little leg up. This arrived in 1985 in the 

shape of the Schaamte production Usurpation. Passages he had 

written himself were cautiously, almost reluctantly, introduced as 

a consequence of the actor’s great need to speak. Initially, De 

Pauw let music hold his hand. Just as in Weg, made twelve years 

later, the speech and rhythm were largely determined by the 

interaction with two musicians who shared the stage with him. 

It was entirely fitting for De Pauw’s way of doing things that 

his musical blood-brother Peter Vermeersch already made his 

appearance in Usurpation as a composer and musician. 

Vermeersch on saxophone and Danny Van Hoeck on percussion 

do not so much follow the actors as guide the whole performance, 

marking the scene changes and occasionally drowning 

the sparsely spoken words. A great many silences fall between 

the archetypical man (De Pauw) and woman (Mieke Verdin), but 

this silence is made eloquent by the hard jazz surrounding it. The 

compositions form a third voice that shifts alternately between 


josse de pauw 

the two protagonists and then retires to the background as sound 

wallpaper. Just as in Weg, the aim is a perfect integration of 

music, theatrical action and words. 

The confrontation between the sexes is acted out amidst a lot 

of old furniture (with some truncated legs so that they stand at 

an angle) and chandeliers. This set was designed by Gorik 

Lindemans. The restrained stage setting reflects the clearance 

that is also to be found in the spoken passages. 

‘C’est ma place au soleil. Voilà le commencement et l’image de 

l’usurpation de toute la terre’ – these words appear in the publicity. 

The content of the play develops out of this quote from the 

pensées of the 18 th -century philosopher Pascal. De Pauw does this 

by emphasising the hard moments in a married couple’s struggle 

to keep their relationship together. These nameless characters 

remain largely withdrawn. There is hardly any genuine dialogue: 

the speakers quote extracts from writings straight to the audience 

(e.g. ‘I know a lot of people and couples. People who live with 

each other’) and only rarely speak to their partner (e.g. ‘I love 

you’). The use of microphones increases the distance between the 

speakers even more. The importance of the music is emphasised, 

even in the writing, by a series of lyrics (mainly from the twentieth-century 

French repertoire) with added commentary. In his 

monologue the male character puts the tragedy experienced in 

love relationships into perspective with a somewhat ironic-nonsensical 

undertone. In a joke about suffering in love, for example: 

‘I would like to be able to take good moments like that and crush 

them into a ball like aluminium foil. Then I would choose one of 

my seventeen rotten teeth and force that ball into it. Then I 

would rush to a dentist, like lightning, and ask if the gap can still 

be filled. And the dentist would fill the gap and I would always 

experience good moments like that. It would become infected 

and fester. It would hurt, but I would know that it was 

toothache. Not all that moaning about the pain of love. Just 

ordinary toothache.’ 

De Pauw tells these poetic, moving little stories hesitatingly, 

almost stammering. 

Despite the major contribution made by the music, De Pauw’s 

intention with Usurpation was to make real actor’s theatre. Not 

with grand gestures and chanted dialogues as in the traditional 

speech-oriented companies, but by looking for a new, more 



restrained manner of acting. De Pauw and Verdin acted with a 

strikingly intense physical effort. In fact, during rehearsals they 

received regular physical training from Anne Teresa De 

Keersmaeker, who was also with Schaamte. Just as in Elena’s 

Aria (1984), De Keersmaeker’s latest production at that time, in 

Usurpation the characters on stage wondered what they were 

doing there, it was as if they had lost their way on stage. 

There was little unanimity among the critics regarding 

Usurpation. Most critics found the performance by no means 

‘overwhelming’. Everyone thoroughly agreed on the influence of 

three theatrical innovators of the eighties: there were the resemblances 

to De Keersmaeker, there was a powerful physical charge 

as in the work of Jan Fabre, and lastly, Jan Decorte was thought 

to have inspired the cheerless stage design, reminiscent of the 

fifties, and the evolution of the action. Some completely demolished 

the play, others considered it a worthy effort but only a few 

really praised it. The Knack, for example, had this to say: 

‘Usurpation was made on the basis of a genuine respect for people 

and for the theatre medium. It is one of the ‘purest’ performances 

ever made in this country.’ 7 In the Netherlands, however, 

Josse De Pauw was enthusiastically received as the latest asset of 

the young Flemish theatre. Our northern neighbours considered it 

splendid that the body was cast into the struggle and that the 

script no longer dominated relationships on stage in this quest for 

the essence of theatrical methods. But the audience that had got 

to know De Pauw through the comical Radeis pieces were disappointed 

in their expectations and initially stayed away in droves. 

Yet with hindsight, Usurpation was a very important piece in 

the context of the whole of De Pauw’s work. It was not only the 

bridge between Radeis and a future as a actor of words and a 

writer. Several other artistic principles were also clearly present 

in 1985. For instance, the play was created entirely in the course 

of the working process. The script arose out of the performers’ 

acting, their contact with the music and the use of silence. This 

close connection between the writing and the practice of playmaking 

remains a constant even today. In addition there is the 

fusion of various materials and disciplines (music/movement/language) 

which turns up so frequently in De Pauw’s work. And 

finally, Usurpation presents itself as a work of art in a state of 

continuous development; an artistic event which is only brought 

to life by its collision with the stage. 


josse de pauw 

Storytellers as travelling companions; De Pauw as a 

writer: Ward Comblez and Het Kind van de Smid 

‘Words can be so beautiful … without their untidy context’, 

thinks Ward Comblez, the first-person narrator in Josse De 

Pauw’s monologue of the same name. In Ward Comblez. He do 

the life in different voices, in 1989, and Het Kind van de Smid, 

in 1990, language finally moves completely to the fore. In Ward 

Comblez, Peter Van Kraaij, who trained as a film director, took 

the parts of first reader, coach and director. The writing of Het 

Kind van de Smid was a case of true co-authorship, which was to 

lead to years of collaboration. Whereas movement and the materiality 

of language (sounds, intonation, rhythm, etc.) played the 

leading part in previous productions, from now on more attention 

was paid to meanings, to the evocative effect of words and 

to poetry. This attention to the text naturally had consequences 

for the acting. Both Ward Comblez and Het Kind van de Smid 

are very literary plays, or rather, they are easy to read on paper. 

There are, moreover, constant shifts between traditional dramatic 

categories such as plot development, building tension and psychological 

character sketching. On stage they are given the necessary 

theatrical power because characters in dialogue are 

replaced by one or more narrators. What remains is the intimate 

and direct confrontation between text, speaker and listener. In 

this respect it is striking how tight the relationship between the 

text and the acting is drawn: the words we hear are the account 

of the process of storytelling. We follow the narrators in the construction 

of their story, as if they thought up the events at the 

moment we come into contact with them. Or, the action of the 

plays is in the act of narration itself, in the language. ‘Autor- 

Erzähler und Schauspieler-Erzähler sind identisch’, 8 wrote 

Marianne Van Kerkhoven regarding the German translation of 

Ward Comblez. Nor does the process of gestation end at the last 

line of writing, but carries on in the performance – night after 

night. Josse De Pauw, as the narrator, bridges the two functions. 

De Pauw’s acting is almost a-theatrical, orally imploring and 

with a plastic evocativeness. The emotional charge is stimulated 

or punctured by traces of pathos. You catch an occasional 

glimpse of it in his words, a gesture slightly too firmly sustained 

in which the speaker at times loses himself. 



The physical act of narration brings the theatrical space to life. 

The staging was also kept extremely frugal in both productions. 

Nothing was to distract from the text, or rather, the narration. All 

the objects on the stage are functional in one way or another: a 

kitsch holiday snap and some women’s clothes in Ward Comblez; 

an anvil, peat and old history prints in Het Kind van de Smid. 

Apart from this, the empty set is filled with language by one or 

more actors. Sometimes they come close to identifying with the 

characters whose name they bear, and then the distance gradually 

increases again. And in fact Josse De Pauw calls them ‘actors 

who play narrators, and who perform a text’. 9 That which 

Comblez does on his own by allowing himself to be swept along 

by the stories and then suddenly putting himself above them, also 

takes place in Het Kind van de Smid, but then between four narrators. 

The strength of this play lies in the tension between being 

swept along by the story and distancing oneself; in the collective 

construction by the actors and the way they pick up on the signals 

they send each other. In this connection, De Pauw and Van 

Kraaij like to refer in interviews to the interplay with jazz musicians. 

This fluid view of acting, in which the texts come to life in 

a different way every night, naturally demands a suitable attitude 

from the director Peter Van Kraaij. He gives a brief outline of his 

working method in Theaterschrift 1991, no. 2: ‘I am very 

reserved, and only gently make adjustments. It would be fatal to 

direct every moment of a performance like this.’ 10 

The rhythm of the narration is usually slow. The characters 

look, in their words, for a way their story will evolve. By inserting 

longer, descriptive passages, speech is slowed down, and then 

suddenly spurts ahead with an eye to new storylines that may 

captivate the audience and show the actor what he is involved in. 

He tries, on the spur of the moment, to bring the strength of the 

narration to life in a theatrical context. 

Not many words are needed in either play to bring the images 

into focus. The language has an independent nature: clusters of 

letters are not there simply to communicate feelings and events, 

but start a life of their own that evolves by way of repetition, 

elliptical sentences, accumulation, imagery, sound similarities 

and rhythm. This use of language is clearly apparent in the following 

extract from Ward Comblez: 


josse de pauw 

I walk, hobble, stagger, limp, drag myself to the door. 

Outside the rain thrashes my skin. 

He hangs stretched out in the twisted top of an olive tree. 

The wind shakes, thrashes, knocks, lashes, whips, bludgeons 

the tree fiercely. 

The water beats in tankfuls against his bare body. 

He smirks, giggles, cheers, whoops, roars, snorts, crows, 

bellows out above the storm. 

He has gone mad. 

I take the tree next to his. 

The workings of the linguistic technique are exposed by means 

of comical associations and word games. The language then 

appears to be something quasi-autonomous that is confronted by 

the authors during the process of growth. The course of the writing 

process is quite intuitive; the reality grows almost organically 

out of the words. The hand of the play-maker also makes its 

presence felt, however: a great deal of importance is attached to 

the richness of the sound of what is written, to the musicality it 

produces, and to its expressiveness when the text is spoken 

aloud. The abundant use of ellipses and short, dry sentences 

which are aloof and put things in perspective, does not detract 

from the fact that even on stage, De Pauw’s language is very 

involved, warm and evocative. 

In De Pauw’s writing, poetry is more than a stylistic quality. 

Ward Comblez and Het Kind van de Smid are not in the first 

instance about what the characters think and feel, at least not 

explicitly, but focus on sensory perception. The characters’ inner, 

emotional world is reflected through this experienced description 

of the outside world. In Het Kind van de Smid, for example, 

Pomp describes his own birth, as if he had stood watching it as 

an uninvolved spectator: 

She had gone into the forest alone that day. 

When the tendrils of mist wrapped themselves round the bushes, 

she was squatting down in the undergrowth. 

She had spread out the blanket and bitten the rattlesnake’s 

rings to pieces. 

Labour started soon after. 

Then the Smith appeared out of the thicket. 

Shocked, helpless, foolish. Each contraction drew him closer. 



She took hold of his arm and pressed. 

After a short while the child broke out of her body. 

Pomp, she said. First born. 

The basic theme from which the Ward Comblez monologue 

unfolds is simple: Ward Comblez is waiting, waiting hopelessly 

for the beloved whom he now has to miss. To ease his sorrow, he 

(re)experiences his long journeys in his mind. Miscellaneous 

descriptions of snapshots in Algeria, Curaçao and Crete are 

linked together by recollections of what is past: the conversations 

he had with his wife, the poem by T.S. Eliot that he found so 

‘lovely’. It is tempting to read Ward Comblez as an extension of 

and sequel to Usurpation. In this piece, the duel between the man 

and woman has come to an end, and loneliness is at its heart. ‘In 

the past I wrote about the trouble of being together, and this 

piece is about the trouble of being alone’ 11 , says De Pauw. 

Ward Comblez was created in 1989 on commission to 

Kaaitheater. The performances underwent several interesting 

changes of text and set design and ran on into spring 1990. The 

music for the performance was once more by Peter Vermeersch, 

and Franky Deconinck was responsible for the set installation. 

Peter Van Kraaij read and corrected the writing and guided the 

process of performing the script in the way a coach would. In this 

respect, Josse De Pauw refers to Ezra Pound’s position as the first 

reader of T.S. Eliot’s work, from whose poem The Waste Land he 

quotes several extracts in this monologue. 

‘A man’s waiting has something feminine about it.’ This was 

the motto accompanying Ward Comblez, inspired by Roland 

Barthes’ book Fragments d’un Discours Amoureux. The French 

philosopher writes on the fact that the woman is traditionally 

given the role of the one who waits: she is sedentary, while the 

man always takes off. He writes: ‘Ils’ensuit que dans tout homme 

qui parle l’absence de l’autre, du féminin se déclare: cet homme 

qui attend et qui souffre est miraculeusement féminisé’. 12 Ward 

Comblez awaits his beloved. Whether she has gone forever 

remains uncertain. So the play is a sort of labour of sorrow. 

When someone leaves, you accuse them of infidelity, according to 

Barthes, because you are the one who is left behind. In order to 

be able to continue your life you want to forget your beloved and 

your shared life as soon as possible. But you forget that forgetting 

is in its turn a form of infidelity. To escape from the barren 


Ward Comblez. 

He do the life in 

different voices

josse de pauw 

land of his emotions, Ward Comblez calls on his imagination. In 

the quest for a new fertility, language is the means to forget, to 

talk oneself out of reality. As if, by talking, Comblez wants to 

make history stand still for a moment. At the same time, language 

turns out to be inadequate to the task of making past experiences 

fully tangible. 

Ward Comblez describes all this from the outside. He looks, 

with a resigned melancholy, at a life that is passing him by. In foreign 

parts he is confronted with his clumsiness, his alienation 

from nature, and his incapacity to switch back to a different 

rhythm of life: Algerian women joke about him when, by mistake, 

he goes to urinate under their window. In Curaçao he fails 

to catch a parrot fish with his bare hands and his friendship with 

a Cretan muleteer goes wrong because he failed to listen to the 

man’s advice ‘never to go too fast’ and so let the mule plunge 

down the mountain. Astonished, amused, pitying and most of all 

fascinated, Ward Comblez observes other people and worlds, 

realising perfectly well that he actually has little to do with them. 

Comblez’s stories are composed of a quite complex orchestration 

of voices. For example, there are the levels within the speaker’s 

‘ego’ (those of the author, the narrator, who describes, and 

the protagonist, who experiences), the alternation between traveller 

and lover, the words of the people mentioned, shifts in the 

tone of narration, an inter-sexual voice (extracts from The Waste 

Land and the words of an Algerian song) and the voice of the 

formal quality of the language. This division reinforces the sense 

of Comblez’s fragmentary identity and the different ways he tries 

to deal with the world. Moreover, there is the voice of the lowkey 

humour and the irony that playfully tickles the impending 

melodrama and the tragedy into putting itself into perspective. 

At one point, for instance, he makes cautious comment on his 

amorous writings for the departed lover: 

When she was still my love I wrote: 

‘She has soaked her hair in henna. But cautiously. 

Smoulderingly. 

And a pale neck, as it should be. … Hips with brains and legs 

which, with pride and self-assurance, carry all that beauty from 

step to step, and she decides where it goes.’ 

I was rather proud of that. She thought it exaggerated. 



The various voices, the dialectic between present and past, the 

pendulum movement between waiting and escaping, the distance 

and proximity, are forms of expression of a person trying to 

make a way for themselves through the devastation of love. 

Loneliness sets the multi-voiced mechanism to the work that 

offers the individual various paths by which to break out of the 

circle of solitude and thereby make an effort to create a new 

bond with the world. 

Just as in Usurpation and Het Kind van de Smid, the production’s 

design was characterised by a restrained choice of theatrical 

symbols. The stage is virtually empty: on an area covered in 

brown wrapping paper stand a table, a chair, an ashtray, a television 

wrapped in paper and a cassette recorder from which 

comes the voice of Edward Fox, reading What the thunder said). 

Fairly central on the stage is a second chair on which hang a red 

skirt and an item of underwear, the only tangible reminders of 

the absent lover. Ward Comblez walks listlessly back and forth, 

sits down, stands up again. Although he does address the audience 

from time to time, he mainly tells his stories to and within 

himself. In the background is a gigantic slide projection screen 

showing a kitsch photo of a paradisaical waterfall. The same picture 

also lights up in the wrapped television, and in this case the 

water is actually flowing: this mobile tourist kitsch is thoroughly 

destroyed by the traveller’s expressive stories. 

After the first series of performances there arose the need for a 

broader setting round the figure of Comblez himself, in order to 

increase the distance from and the internalisation of the character: 

the audience now heard a accurately drawn biography, the 

set was made more frugal, and before he started to speak as 

Comblez, De Pauw put on a sweatband, which he then took off 

again after the closing line. This enhanced the purity of the act of 

narration. This reworked version of Ward Comblez was the stepping 

stone to Het Kind van de Smid. 

In 1990, Josse De Pauw, now with Peter Van Kraaij as a full coauthor, 

worked on a minor epic set in the nineteenth century. The 

play was performed for the first time in the Kaaitheater Studios 

in Brussels on 18th December. De Pauw himself played the part 

of the Child [het Kind], accompanied by Frank Vercruyssen 

(Pomp), Willy Thomas (commentator) and José Verheire (the 


Het Kind 

van de Smid

josse de pauw 

Smith). With a minimum of acting movement, the actors tell us 

about the figures in the story or speak through them. Sometimes 

they come close to a genuine character, and then shortly afterwards 

leave it again. The actors remain above all themselves; 

they are speaking bodies who build up the story together and 

alternately allow each other to speak. In so doing, the commentator 

Willy Thomas uses a microphone and a portable loudspeaker, 

while dressing up in carnival hats, false spectacles, 

beards and ears. He narrates in an ironic and sarcastic manner; 

this tone keeps the deeply serious theme in balance while strangling 

any possibility of pamphleteering but at the same time 

emphasises the seriousness of the findings. The other actors narrate 

in a deliberate, subtle and intimate manner. 

The inspiration for the text came both from Van Kraaij’s study 

of American history and De Pauw’s reading of Robert Hughes’ 

The Fatal Shore. From this they distilled the story of an Irish 

smith who emigrated to America in the early 19 th century to enter 

the service of the Corps of Discovery that President Jefferson had 

commissioned to chart the unexplored Missouri river. There he 

witnesses an Indian woman (Sacajaweja) giving birth to the child 

of a white Canadian. After the death of the Canadian, the Smith 

also fathers a child by her. The first-born is called Pomp, the second 

just Kind [Child]. Through the life of these two half-brothers 

we experience the history of the exploration of north-west 

America and the contact with Indian tribes, the famine in Ireland 

and the penal colony in Australia. 

The research work that accompanied this writing process is 

clear to see in the quotation of historic details and the references 

to historical events that are scattered throughout the play. 

Although the writing is in the same visual, poetic language as 

Ward Comblez, this is a more complex play with broader intentions. 

The various voices which, in the monologue, centred on 

the narrator, are in Het Kind van de Smid divided into different 

figures. In this play, the different voices have become a more 

clearly structuring element. History also becomes a separate 

voice, which is both informative and creates and epic setting. 

Extracts from authentic documents are read out to the audience: 

speeches by Indian chiefs, extracts from logbooks, a quotation 

from President Thomas Jefferson, etc. become part of the writing, 

in their original form. Actual dates and geographic locations 

are constantly being given, which makes the real historic frame- 



work a prominent presence. The references in the following passage, 

for instance, describing the death of the Indian woman 

Sacajaweja (the Smith’s wife and mother of the Child), absorb it 

into the epic progress of time, as a detail in the mass white exploration 

of North America. 

The Smith 

Soshone camp, autumn 1812 

The Indian woman is ill. The medicine man is busy day and 

night. I do not sleep. 

Soshone camp, autumn 1812 

That old fellow with his rattles is starting to get on my nerves. 

This is a white illness. 

The Child 

It was autumn 1812. We took the Indian woman to Fort 

Manuel. The white doctor there would cure her. … 

The Smith 

Fort Manuel, autumn 1812 

Her nails in my arm. 

The Child 

20 th September, 7 o’clock in the evening, the Indian woman, 

our mother, died. 

Set against this immense background, the story of these fictional 

characters assumes a form. The three characters are narrators: 

they have hardly any dialogue with each other but their narrations 

build up the story piece by piece. Both Pomp and the Child 

tell about themselves in the first person and about each other in 

the third person , but they rarely use the dialogue we-form. Just 

as in Ward Comblez, the epic preterite is a form of expression in 

storytelling. Descriptions of nature and human movements 

throughout the play slow it down somewhat. Erwin Jans called 

this ‘the slow rhythm of observation’ 13 . The images evoked are 

highly distilled. The environment is sketched using few but carefully 

chosen words. This distances us from what is being told, 

and in this lies the poetry of the text. 

In Het Kind van de Smid, Josse De Pauw and Peter Van Kraaij 

create the possibility for the individual to sustain himself in an 

intersubjective relationship with time by way of a poetic narration. 

The two half-brothers metaphorically embody the universal 

dialectic between an internalised search for connections in life (as 


josse de pauw 

in the now blind Pomp, who stays with the Snake people) and a 

physical, external endurance of the world (such as the Child’s 

journey across Ireland and the penal camps in Australia). The 

one goes to look, the other sees; the one experiences everything 

physically, the other knows. The two worlds come into contact 

at the end of the narration. The two half-brothers find each other 

again in two short sentences: 

Pomp 

They built a statue of our mother. 

The Child 

I know. I’ve seen it. 

At the heart of the tale lies the impact that social organisation 

and history have on the individual, his search for an identity and 

dealing with power. Migration is a key word. Although it is not 

explicit, the authors do assume a clear position in the multiculturalism 

debate by arguing for mutual tolerance and the 

acknowledgement of the great similarities between different peoples 

instead of the hyperbolic emphasis on differing views. 

Ward Comblez and Het Kind van de Smid display similarities not 

only in form but also in content. Just as in other productions by 

De Pauw, we hear traveller’s tales in which the narrators go in 

search of their own place in the world. Ward Comblez takes us to 

Algeria, Curaçao and Crete; with the Smith and the Child we end 

up in the Australian camps after a while in America and Europe. 

In both pieces we see a cyclical ending to the journey. The issue 

of identity, which led to these wanderings, is not only a matter of 

the individual, but extends to the Other and the power balances 

so created, leading ultimately to a number of questions about a 

broader cultural individuality. In this respect, history functions as 

a grand background against which the story stands out. In Ward 

Comblez it is still about the condensed, personal history – closely 

associated with a geographical setting; in Het Kind van de 

Smid history is completely opened up. The imagination plays a 

prominent part in each of these facets. In the narration, truth and 

fantasy join forces to form the speaker’s story. 

Both productions were received very well in Flanders and the 

Netherlands. The award of the 1990 Dr Oscar De Gruyter Prize 


[1] Echafaudages by Radeis. 1982-1984. 

Production: Schaamte.h

[2] Ik wist niet dat Engeland zo mooi was by Radeis. 1979-1983. 

Conceived and performed by: Jan De Bruyne, Josse De Pauw, Dirk Pauwels, 

Pat Van Hemelrijck. Production: Schaamte. 

[3] Vogels by Radeis. 1981-1984. L. to r.: Georges Brouckaert, 

Pat Van Hemelrijck, Dirk Pauwels, Josse De Pauw. Production: Schaamte.l 

[4] Ward Comblez. He do the life in different voices (Josse De Pauw with 

Peter van Kraaij). 1988-1989. Josse De Pauw as Ward Comblez. 

Production: Kaaitheater in association with Lantaren/ Venster, Rotterdam, 

Beursschouwburg and De Voorziening, Groningen. 

[5] Weg (Josse De Pauw). 1997-1998. With Josse De Pauw, Peter Vermeersch 

and Pierre Vervloesem. Music: Peter Vermeersch. Production: Kaaitheater.

[6] De meid slaan (after Baudelaire, Lucebert, Sidney Michaels, Strindberg, 

Kotaro Takamura, Josse De Pauw, Tom Jansen). 1993-1994. 

Actors: Josse De Pauw, Tom Jansen, Fumiyo Ikeda. Directors: Josse De Pauw, 

Tom Jansen. Production: Kaaitheater, Nationaal Fonds Amsterdam. De keizer 

van het verlies (Jan Fabre). Regie: Jan Fabre. Troubleyn, mei 1996. Met 

Dirk Roofthooft. 


to De Pauw for his acting in these two plays says it all. But in the 

longer term it was mainly De Pauw’s position as a fully-fledged 

playwright that was established by these narrations. In 1991, for 

instance, he received the three-yearly State Prize for Dramatic 

Literature. In 1993, Ward Comblez was included in a German 

anthology of seven plays from the Dutch-speaking countries and 

in 1998 International Theatre & Film Books published a French 

edition of Ward Comblez and Het Kind van de Smid. 

A great many critics experienced the texts not so much as plays 

but as literary creations. The terms ‘epic’, ‘storytelling’ and ‘narrative 

theatre’ were frequently used to describe them. In De 

Standaard one could read that Het Kind van de Smid ‘does not 

comply with the characteristics of a traditional dramatic text’. ‘If 

it were not so easily performable one might venture to call it a 

‘reading drama’. But fortunately that genre belongs permanently 

to the past. On the other hand the work lends itself more to reading 

than a great many other dramatic texts’. 14 Several journalists 

added to this by belittling the performance of the play, ‘Het Kind 

van de Smid … seems to me more suited to being read than acted. 

It has such a wealth of images which on stage are simply beaten 

flat’, 15 said Toneel Theatraal, and the reviewer in Knack ‘very 

much had the impression that reading the play is the best way to 

appreciate its poetry’. 16 One journalist went very far, writing, ‘I 

think this book is so fine that it might be better not to go and see 

the play’. 17 Nevertheless, De Pauw’s plays were not alone in 

Flemish dramatic literature in the second half of the eighties. 

Ward Comblez and Het Kind van de Smid do not comply with 

the traditional categories of theatricality. Their writing displays 

similarities with a contemporary discourse whose main elements 

are the ties with theatrical practice, the diversity of materials and 

disciplines and the uncompleted nature of the text (text developing 

on stage). Such requirements as direct dialogues and the deictic 

reference to a topical context are of less importance. 18 

Dialogue/duologue: De meid slaan and Trots vlees 

In 1993, Josse De Pauw, together with the Dutch actor, director 

and author Tom Jansen, presented De meid slaan, produced by 

Kaaitheater and the Nationaal Fonds Amsterdam. Whereas Het 

Kind van de Smid still opted for narration in order that the actors 


josse de pauw 

did not get bogged down in their characters during dialogues, 

what we suddenly get here is a real dialogue play. This naturally 

has major consequences for the relationship between the actor 

and the script. Although the autobiographical reality of the 

friends De Pauw and Jansen is to some extent used in De meid 

slaan, the play can no longer be categorised as narrative theatre. 

During the performance, the acting is central to the direct confrontation 

with each other and with the audience. This is reflected 

in the fragmentary composition of the text (whose content 

was selected for its performability) and in the pleasure the actors 

have in performing. De meid slaan is, more than anything else, 

actor’s theatre. 

From an overall point of view, this acting is also a constant in 

the content of the play. Acting is seen as a means of survival, in 

which people position themselves in roles opposite each other in 

order to divide up the positions of power. In this respect language 

is the most important weapon. Sometimes the dialogues are sidetracked 

into a sort of cross-interrogation; then again the different 

voices speak in unison. Despite the great affinity between the 

real lives of the actor-authors and the play itself – the characters 

on stage are called simply Tom, Josse and Fumiyo – a certain distance 

is maintained. The dialectic between the people and the 

actors on stage provides for a constant tension between truth and 

imagination. 

The writing process was accompanied with an exchange of 

poetry, stories and music, over which they spoke on the basis of 

their own experiences or by linking it to events in the world. 

After the geography of Ward Comblez and the epic history of 

Het Kind van de Smid, we are now served with a spectrum of literary 

and cultural history. The authors made use of Baudelaire, 

Lucebert, Sidney Michaels, Strindberg and Kotaro Takamura. 

More and more personal elements were gradually added to the 

text. They took the title from Spanking the Maid by the 

American writer Robert Coover, a book about power relationships. 

No real story is told; though a few major themes can be 

pointed to: the piece is about the macho behaviour friends display 

‘between themselves’. Two actors meet up again after a long 

time. In their armchairs, the two men awkwardly think up possible 

topics of conversation, with regular uncomfortable silences. 

They converse with each other by way of the literary texts or the 

plays they know: Jansen speaks about Baudelaire’s Le spleen de 



Paris; the story of a man visiting a friend. De Pauw comes up 

with the first lines of a poem by Lucebert, stalls, thinks, and has 

it finished off by Jansen. The dialogue gradually evolves into an 

intellectual duel. All at once a Japanese woman appears behind a 

glass partition. It is Fumiyo Ikeda (who is in reality Josse De 

Pauw’s wife). Her presence upsets the male intimacy and gives a 

completely different turn to both men’s behaviour. They try to 

win her favour and overwhelm her with knowledge. Then they 

ask her to recite a Japanese poem. When she then translates the 

text into Dutch, her language is constantly and pedantically corrected. 

It ends in a violent argument because the host thinks 

Jansen is becoming too intimate with her. Fortunately a kitsch 

present of broken glassware is able to save their friendship. 

As has already been mentioned, friendship at work has been an 

abiding starting point throughout De Pauw’s stage career. The 

special thing about his kinship with Tom Jansen is their shared 

concern with acting. The two men got to know each other while 

shooting a trial film by Guido Hendrickx for the NOS television 

channel. What they recognised in each other was the way of acting, 

the pleasure of performance and the boldness needed to take 

risks. It was therefore no surprise that two years after De meid 

slaan, the two friends suddenly came up with their own production 

company, called Laagland, which was intended in the first 

place to function as a place where several like-minded artists 

could work together. 

The first Laagland production, Trots vlees, opened at Monty in 

Antwerp on 14 th June 1995. Just as in De meid slaan, the basis 

of this piece was friendship, the difference being that this time 

the starting point was an existing play which they had not written 

themselves: this was the one-act play Clearing in the Forest 

by the American writer James Purdy. This is also the major difference 

with the remaining, more or less independent productions 

by De Pauw. In fact the play was used in its entirety, though 

the actors did add their own opinions as well as various other 

texts to Purdy’s play, including a poem by Lucebert, an essay by 

the 19 th -century gastronome Brillat-Savarin and the tear-jerker 

‘Een kleine foto van mijn meisje’ [‘A little photo of my girl’]. De 

Pauw touches on the underlying motivation for interpersonal 

communication in this production too: Purdy goes in search of 

intimacy, open wounds and the internal power balance lurking in 


josse de pauw 

all human relationships. In so doing he comes up with such 

explosive questions as ‘how far can two men go in their friendship 

before it is called homosexuality? How often can you hurt 

someone before they run away? How much damage can you do 

without causing a final break? In fact they are subjects that De 

Pauw and Jansen had already dealt with together. 

In De Pauw’s career, productions like De meid slaan and Trots 

vlees are important because they clearly show another side of this 

play-maker as a poetic writer and storyteller. The pleasure of acting 

with Tom Jansen, on the basis of recognisable, possibly autobiographical 

facts, here has the edge over the plastic aspect of 

storytelling as in the duo De Pauw and Van Kraaij, or the musical 

interaction of the duo De Pauw and Vermeersch. His work 

with Dominique Deruddere in film (Crazy Love (1987), Wait 

Until Spring, Bandini (1989), Hombres Complicados (1997) and 

Iedereen Beroemd (2000)) and with Hugo De Greef in the area 

of structure and organisation, can be described as a sort of 

‘league of two’. And what about his collaboration with Mandus 

De Vos, who gave the young De Pauw his first lessons in recitation 

and with whom he later appeared on several occasions at the 

Mechels Miniatuur Theater (Francesco Furioso (1973) and De 

bende van Jan de Lichte (1974))? 

In each case De Pauw commences his collaboration with the 

same energy, adapting himself entirely to the discipline and 

friendship of each successive partner. In addition, De Pauw leaves 

traces of his own evolution as a play-maker in the career of each 

of these partnerships. His collaboration with Peter Van Kraaij, 

for instance, grew from a monologue, through a narration for 

several voices, and a film with dialogue (Vinaya) to a proper 

existing play (Exiles), with all that entails. It was with Tom 

Jansen that he introduced a considerable number of direct dialogues 

for the first time, and then included an existing one-act 

play in their next production together. 

Larf: a ‘concert dramatique’ 

After Weg, which was discussed at the start of this book (see pp. 

10-12), De Pauw went to Ghent to make Larf at Victoria. The 

artistic director, Dirk Pauwels, asked him to make a piece that 



would fit into the Time Festival 2000’s theme of ‘Mad Kings’. 

What is more, with the Vooruit Geluid music event, Brussels 2000 

and the Festival of Flanders as extra production partners, there 

were sufficient financial resources to make a large-scale production 

of it. 

Since Usurpation in 1985, it had always been De Pauw’s dream 

to combine words and music on stage. This was realised in a 

highly ingenious way in Weg. At that point his collaboration 

with the composer Peter Vermeersch reached a peak. But De 

Pauw wanted to take it one step further. As he said a few days 

before the opening night, ‘I saw Weg much more as a story with 

a thread, whereas Larf is much further away from a clear storyline. 

It is a sort of evocation, more associative. This was a deliberate 

choice: I wanted to break up the writing even more, there 

is much more music in it. … Music is in itself highly abstract. I 

feel that the more you go in that direction in language, the closer 

you get to music.’ 19 

In the end Vermeersch brought his sixteen-man big band The 

Flat Earth Society with him, and the blues legend Roland Van 

Campenhout also took part, so that the three actors, De Pauw 

and his artistic brothers-in-arms Tom Jansen and Dirk 

Roofthooft, were physically clearly in the minority. 

The performance starts in complete silence. The sculptor and 

painter Koenraad Tinel crosses the stage with a bucket and a 

huge paintbrush. With great energy he starts to paint on a sheet 

of white fibreglass lying on the floor. While he creates a crude 

image of a larva, other sounds gradually become perceptible: the 

clatter of musical instruments, a voice, a few notes. Tinel’s movements 

are also amplified by way of a microphone. When his work 

is finished, the cloth is flown so that it hangs as a backcloth. The 

actors and musicians then enter. They put everything together on 

the spot. The platform, chairs, instruments and instruments and 

a few bits of set are brought on quietly and efficiently. 

Ladies and gentlemen, tonight we are telling the story of Baby 

becomes King. We are calling the baby Larva, because in the 

beginning that is what it looked like most. Larva himself did not 

know he would be born, so he is beyond reproach, but on the 

other hand little Larva was ramapolo toolinparky esterantic 

mavoose. Malasikapoo and flimbikly bararst…’ 


It is with this short prologue that Tom Jansen introduces the spoken 

word into the performance. The start of the story of Larfken 

is already upset after several sentences and lapses into an abstract 

baby-talk, the sort of nonsense adults are in the habit of coming 

out with over the baby’s cot. The atmosphere is immediately 

established: 

Little Larva, Larva wee 

Is a butterfly what you will be? 

Yesssssssssssssssssssss! 

Little Larva, Larva son 

And do you know the way it’s done? 

Nooooooooooooooooooo! 

Larva, Larva, little nit 

Scratch your skin all to bits! 

Oooooooooooooooooooo! 

josse de pauw 

‘And then the music pierces to the bone,’ is the following stage 

direction, and that is exactly what happens. While the actors 

describe how the royal baby came into the world, the sounds of 

woodwind and brass, percussion, electric guitar, vibraphone, 

keyboards, bass and a female voice resound through the fairytale 

narration. Lyrical phrases, melancholy reflections on the birth 

and the constantly repeated ‘rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye’ set the tone. 

The birth and the first signs of life are cloyingly described. 

The child grows up perfectly and is loved by everyone until it 

learns to speak. ‘I’, is its first word. And the second and third: ‘I. 

I. II. IIIIIIII…’ Dirk Roofthooft goes on endlessly bellowing the 

word. Gradually other words appear and the first sentences take 

shape: ‘I am the world. I want. Give me what is mine.’ The eagerly 

expected child turns out to be a pain in the neck, obsessed with 

such a hunger for power that nothing less than the royal throne 

is good enough for him. 

Whereas during the beginning section of the play the three 

actors simply sat on chairs amongst the musicians, as speaking 

voices in the orchestra, from the moment Larf ascends the throne 



they separate themselves from the group. They put on wrought 

iron adornments by Tinel and each climbs one of the huge 

thrones high above the big band. Once there they start to speak: 

on the importance of the threat of an enemy for the smooth functioning 

of the state, on the guilt of the corrupt woman, on what 

lives and what does not, on the creation of flowery meadows and 

on the genesis of mankind. The theory of natural selection which 

they support leads to the burning of a monkey figure while the 

kings laugh and shout (‘Ape face! Ugly mug! Get back up your 

tree!). From this point on the political undertone in the play 

becomes paramount. It is not only that power as a universal fact 

becomes the point of the play, but its practical consequences are 

also examined. 

In a rhetorically sophisticated speech the kings address the people: 

‘Ladies and gentlemen, my dear people, Jean, Jeanine and 

Sigiswald, chers compatriotes, mesdames, messieurs. Things are 

going well. Very well. We have little or no reason to complain.’ 

This is followed by a description of just how good things are, 

how fine life can be and how cleverly we are able to protect ourselves 

from all manner of calamity. The state is an oasis of good 

fortune and no burglar, war or storm can harm it. The public, 

which is initially invited to join in this contemplation of all the 

nice things they are able to experience everyday, are little by little 

also given more unpleasant morsels to digest. The rulers refer 

increasingly often to the misery outside, the villains and goodfor-nothings 

who do not know how to organise their own lives. 

And then comes the dénouement: 

We have ever been an hospitable and helpful people. 

But if they loom up out of the desert in their hordes to settle 

here in our oasis, if they cross the great waters in their rickety 

ships to pitch their tents here on our shores, if, like Icarus, they 

start to sew on wings and flap them wildly about, 

to fly up towards our sun… 

Then we should not stand silently looking on! 

… 

It is not our fault that others appear incapable of shaking off 

the ape! 

Then, when all three of them reel off ‘The Lion of Flanders’ word 

by word, no doubt is left about De Pauw’s intentions. Certainly 


josse de pauw 

in the context of asylum policy and the election success of the farright 

Flemish Block party in 2000, from this point on the audience 

has the political message fairly thrown at it. But De Pauw 

thinks this is still not enough. He then has the three kings perform 

a bare-bottomed ‘Larva dance’ at the front of the stage. 

While turning round like ‘broken dervishes’ they each pick up a 

microphone. The comments they make on power gone astray 

include ‘I didn’t know anything about it’, ‘They say so many 

things’ and ‘I was told that later, but I don’t know whether it’s 

true’. The music corroborates this denial and leads to the ultimate 

finale: against the backcloth the king, played by a suitably 

dressed Roland Van Campenhout, rises towards heaven. He 

breaks into a blues number, but after several verses the big band 

again storms into it. 

It is quite clear that in both form and content, Larf was a very 

daring piece. What had been achieved in Weg was explored even 

further, but the intimate nature of the earlier piece had to give 

way to a much more broadly constructed whole. More speakers, 

more musicians and, what is more, less of a leading role for the 

word. There were no real characters: De Pauw, Roofthooft and 

Jansen all gave shape to the king and other speakers. They 

repeated each other’s words, took up each other’s lines, like three 

voices together helping a text grow. In most cases it was the 

music that indicated when a passage ended or when the tension 

was rising. That which was done on a limited scale between a 

narrator and two musicians in Weg was here given its full splendour. 

Starting from the theme of ‘mad kings’, De Pauw commenced 

an analysis of the aberrations of power in the broadest sense. 

One of his sources of inspiration was Herodes by W.H. Auden, 

which he performed in autumn 1999 as a monologue on the 

occasion of Tg Stan’s tenth anniversary. In this speech, King 

Herodes justifies the murder of innocent children and is able to 

do so in such a way that his reasoning comes across as credible. 

De Pauw composed his speech on patriotic happiness and the 

threat from ‘the apes’ in the same way. Despite the clear reference 

to the far right, it was not so much his intention to touch upon 

the political situation in Flanders as to offer a view of power. 

Starting from something universal, the birth of a child, he systematically 

examined where power became uncontrollable. The 



fact that Larfke’s first word was ‘I’ does not necessarily mean 

that the baby was doomed to end up a dictator. As De Pauw says, 

‘A child has to concentrate on itself, if it is to have a chance of 

survival. Later this ‘I’ has to be put into perspective and related 

to other ‘I’s, so that life becomes livable and practicable’ 20 . 

Everyone has to protect what is dear to him, that is normal, the 

only question is to what extent others are allowed to affect this 

happiness. It is precisely on this distinction between a sort of 

healthy egoism and an unhealthy overdose of it that the play 

turns. In this respect it may be that Larf came closest to the 

theme De Pauw and Peter Van Kraaij touched on in Het Kind van 

de Smid, whose main topics were also ‘the migration of peoples’ 

and dealing with the power over one’s own life and others’. 

Like its predecessor Weg, Larf was in the main positively received 

in the press, apart from a few comments on its rather untidy 

structure. On 20 th November 2000 De Pauw received the Océ 

Podium Prize for the two pieces. After Weg’s selection for the 

Dutch-Flemish Theatre Festival and the extremely favourable 

reviews of De Pauw’s collected dramatic and prose writings in 

Werk, this prize was again a recognition of what he had achieved 

in the theatre in previous years. 


STRUCTURAL AND 

ARTISTIC CONTEXT 

With a view to survival: the structural context 

In Josse De Pauw’s theatre work, it is not only his views on acting 

and writing that form a clear thread, but its structural context 

also has its own recognisable pattern. In the same way as he 

opts for the familiar collaboration with a few artist friends, he 

has for twenty years never really left his niche in Brussels. Until 

Weg in 1998 he still floated along with the same, though now 

mature, arts centre where his story once started with Radeis. For 

this reason De Pauw’s work cannot be seen independently from 

the organisational structure of Schaamte/Kaaitheater. The more 

recent developments in Laagland, Victoria and HetNet are also 

the direct consequence of encounters that took place in this 

Brussels establishment. 

First there was Radeis. As we have said, as a result of a lack of 

subsidies, in May 1978 the group sought a haven at Schaamte, 

under the care of Hugo De Greef, who since 1977 had also been 

the organiser of the biennial Kaaitheater Festival. This non-profit 

organisation was not intended to be a theatre agency or manager, 

but a basis on which its performing arts members could fall 

back or from where their projects could be coordinated. 

Schaamte functioned as a production and distribution company 

and the performers who were its members bore their financial 

burden in solidarity while carrying out their creative artistic 

work with total independence. After Radeis, Anne Teresa De 

Keersmaeker and Jan Lauwers and his Epigonentheater also 

joined, among others. It was due to Schaamte that these new performing 

artists were given the chance to build up their theatre 

careers, even far beyond our borders. 

As from its second edition, the emphasis of the Kaaitheater 

Festival was on formally innovative theatre and productions of 

its own. Radeis was also involved several times. Their performance 

of Ik wist niet dat Engeland zo mooi was at the 1979 

Kaaitheater Festival signalled the start of their breakthrough and 

in the early eighties the company took off internationally. The 

festival’s purpose was to provide Flemish theatre with new stimuli, 

to expand the possibilities and to take it to an international 


structural and artistic context 

level. In this way the Kaaitheater Festival also had a major influence 

on the innovative movement of the eighties. It was no coincidence 

that three pioneering productions were included in its 

programme: Jan Decorte’s Maria Magdalena (1981) was a 

Kaaitheater production, in 1983 Anne Teresa De keersmaeker 

presented Rosas danst Rosas and Jan Fabre started his international 

operations at the 1983 Kaaitheater Festival with Het is 

theater zoals te verwachten en te voorzien was. Both Radeis and 

the Rosas dance productions added to the renown of the 

Schaamte production company. 

After five festivals, the director De Greef considered the form 

outdated. For this reason the Kaaitheater Festival switched to 

full-season operation in 1987 and then merged with Schaamte. 

Josse De Pauw remained a permanent lodger in this renewed centre, 

which from then on was called simply Kaaitheater. 

According to him, the Kaaitheater does not impose any work 

specifications on the artist, but tries to guarantee the best possible 

working conditions so that creativity can develop according 

to its own dynamic. It was as a result of the direct assistance of 

Kaaitheater that he was able, together with Peter Van Kraaij, to 

make Ward Comblez, Het Kind van de Smid and the full-length 

film Vinaya. He was also able to call on them for the production 

of De meid slaan. In addition, De Pauw played parts in the 

Kaaitheater productions Het Trio in Mi-Bémol, Exiles, De 

Verhuizing and Wolokolamsker Chaussee – V (a coproduction 

with Antigone) and wrote texts and lyrics for De Oplosbare Vis 

and Momentum, two pieces coproduced by Kaaitheater. In 1994 

Hugo De Greef asked him to direct a play himself. This was to 

be the first time that the Kaaitheater entered into a joint venture 

with one of the Flemish repertory companies (Nederlands Toneel 

Gent). However, the play, called De vrouwen, was cancelled 

before completion. 

In 1995 De Pauw and Jansen founded Laagland. Their purpose 

in this Dutch-Flemish organisation was to bring together likeminded 

artists who guaranteed artistic quality and to work 

towards fruitful confrontation and collaboration. This kinship 

was intended, broadly, to express itself in a focus on language 

(writing, translation, poetry, language for the sake of language) 

and on the artist in his relationship to this language and to his 

fellow performer. This was linked to the quest for simplicity, in a 

direct and profound form of communication. In this instance, 


josse de pauw 

simplicity does not mean superficial identifiability or unambiguousness; 

the point was to clarify the content by exploration using 

language and form. This quest for a way of communication 

which, although theatrical, was not intended to be aestheticising, 

coincided with the urge to make plays that were not hermetic. 

The aim of Laagland was to build up a repertoire of performances 

that were easy to tour, even beyond the Dutch-speaking 

boundaries. The pleasure of acting and the urge to reach a broader 

audience (in both numbers and location) went hand in hand. 

What is more, Laagland did not present itself as a purely theatrical 

organisation, but wished to be active in several areas at the 

same time: theatre, film, television and literature. Some of the 

basic principles (breakdown of boundaries, interdisciplinary 

work, the freedom of the artist) were already to be found in the 

organisation of Radeis and Schaamte. 

A fine example of the operation of Laagland was the monologue 

De Wijze van zaal 7 by the Dutch photographer Hans 

Aarsman. Three major storytellers were behind the production: 

Dirk Roofthooft acted, Tom Jansen directed and Josse De Pauw 

was responsible for the dramaturgy. Despite the success of plays 

like this, which was invited to the 1996 Theatre Festival, 

Laagland’s request for operational subsidy from the Dutch and 

Flemish authorities (8.9 and 12.8 million BEF respectively) was 

rejected. The advisory boards advised against it because it was 

too thinly spread over time (2 productions per year), because the 

audience reached was too small, the use of people and resources 

was uneconomical and, in addition, the use of subsidies for 

reflective work was not even recognised by the Dutch system. 

This meant that Laagland was not able to develop to the full and 

for the time being De Pauw’s room at the Kaaitheater boarding 

house remained occupied. In 1997 Hugo De Greef decided to 

leave the Kaaitheater and this meant the start of a new period in 

the structural and artistic aspects of De Pauw’s work too. 

‘After the change of director, Kaaitheater also took an artistic 

turn. With the new team we have sought ways of working 

together, because that is what we all wanted. But it is not different: 

I am one of the old guard, and then it is not so evident to go 

along with the changes. I also had the feeling I would repeat the 

same stories there. At Victoria that need not happen. I shall be 

able to do there what I want to.’ 21 This was De Pauw’s comment 



on his 1999 decision to move to the Victoria theatre production 

company, led by his former Radeis colleague Dirk Pauwels in 

Ghent. After five interim presentations before an audience, he 

came up with Larf, his biggest production to date. Apart from 

the name of the producer, there appeared to be no sign of a break 

with his past at the Kaaitheater, especially since his favourite performers 

also moved from Brussels to East Flanders for the occasion. 

But in fact he did not work at Victoria for very long. In the 

end, the offer to take over the leadership, from 2000 on, of the 

former Theater De Korre in Bruges, now called HetNet, provided 

him with more opportunities for doing the things he really 

wanted. 

Once again it was Hugo De Greef who presented De Pauw 

with a decisive choice in his career. After leaving Kaaitheater and 

being appointed as intendant of Bruges 2002, De Greef was 

asked by the director of Theater De Korre, Robrecht De 

Spiegelaere, to look for a replacement for the then incumbent, 

Bob De Moor. This is how De Pauw’s name came up, and he, 

after some hesitation, accepted on condition that he could adapt 

the function of artistic director entirely to suit himself. Just as 

had happened previously with Laagland, HetNet’s application 

for subsidy was at first also rejected by the performing arts advisory 

board. After a review, however, it did in the end qualify for 

aid from the Flemish Community. 

Almost all the artists with whom he had in the past established 

ties will also find themselves working at HetNet: the actors Tom 

Jansen and Dirk Roofthooft, the director Peter Van Kraaij, the 

composer Peter Vermeersch, sculptor Koenraad Tinel and many 

others. The dramaturge Marianne Van Kerkhoven, who had 

until then supervised most of De Pauw’s productions, also moved 

to Bruges. ‘Josse De Pauw was never able to settle in the major 

hierarchical theatre establishments,’ she wrote in the introduction 

to the 2000 season brochure. ‘This is a perfect working setting 

for him, a sort of collective with a constantly changing set of 

people in which his creations and those of his artistic friends will 

be able to thrive with the greatest possible freedom.’ 22 


josse de pauw 

The wanderer in the landscape: 

artistic context and reception 

Josse De Pauw has never worked very much in the larger Flemish 

companies. He always continued to hone his own approach, 

which he was free to mark out in the so-called ‘secondary circuit’. 

Nevertheless, in the Radeis performances he at one time 

encountered, and supplied inspiration to, the innovative movements 

of the eighties and the present generation of play-makers 

have probably learnt something from him too – even though his 

career has not always been seen as a continuous thread. The fact 

that Josse De Pauw is usually understood to be a loner and not 

as part of the shifting panoramic landscape of theatre is sustained 

by several factors. There is for instance his loyalty to an artistic 

family, the need to be able to work in peace and the somewhat 

slow tempo at which new productions appear. In addition, the 

need to play various fields, both in theatre and the other arts, 

means that he is hard to force into one particular tradition or 

development in theatre. Yet De Pauw is in this regard by no 

means alone in Dutch-language theatre. In fact, by consciously 

standing on the sidelines of the theatre establishment, he more 

than once ended up at the heart of theatrical renewal. 

The first extremely important event in this respect was the development 

of Radeis. Not only did the group’s international reputation 

have a great influence on the development of Kaaitheater 

(festival and organisation), but in addition, in the early eighties 

Radeis’ wordless theatre contributed to the emergence of the radically 

renewed discourse on physical theatre and contemporary 

dance in Flanders. Their unconventional handling of visuality 

and the body, free from traditional theatres of movement and 

objects, was a step in this direction. Furthermore, their frivolous, 

disarticulating and often mildly destructive treatment of theatre 

conventions undoubtedly had an influence on postmodern theatre 

productions in subsequent years. 

Against the background of what was later to be labelled the theatrical 

renewal of the eighties, Radeis was very early in making an 

impression: they were already working on their own house style 

in 1977, one which was also enthusiastically received abroad 

after 1980. The whole Radeis repertoire had already been (pro- 



visionally) shaped before 1981, whereas controversial productions 

by Jan Decorte (Maria Magdalena), Ivo Van Hove (De 

Geruchten), Herman Gilis (Het Laxeermiddel) and Jan Fabre 

(Het is theater zoals te verwachten en te voorzien was) only 

appeared as from that year. Even the other two resident Schaamte 

companies, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker with Rosas and Jan 

Lauwers’ Epigonentheater, only really started to operate fully in 

the early eighties. 

The influence (direct and indirect) of Radeis cannot be separated 

from the interaction with the international theatre scene. For 

Belgium, Radeis were a successful company abroad, which at the 

same time opened up the borders in order both to bring in other 

innovative companies (The Wooster Group, Pina Bausch, Jürgen 

Gosch, Maatschappij Discordia, etc.) and to promote its own 

groups abroad. The boundary-breaking nature of this new generation, 

in terms of both geography and form and discipline, had 

found a wordless messenger in Radeis. This group’s acutely 

funny and, most importantly, unpretentious theatre was sufficient 

to burst forever the petrified legacy of the late seventies. 

Not by using the tough approach of what was later to be labelled 

the ‘Flemish wave’, but with jollity, subtlety and, above all, 

aware of the relative nature of every theatre tradition. Whereas 

others, mainly because they were unhappy with dramatic arts 

education in their own country, looked for new languages of 

movement elsewhere, Radeis sought renewal within itself and in 

the tradition of popular theatre, by upsetting the old theatrical 

codes. Radeis was at the same time a very early exponent (e.g. in 

their opposition to the increasingly slogan-based theatre of political 

awareness) and stimulator of theatrical renewal, which was 

accompanied by a changed attitude to the actor and the dramaturgical, 

disciplinary and stage material used. Old dramatic 

precepts were unremittingly attacked. It was, for example, no 

longer necessary to play characters. Empathic-portrait acting and 

pedantic acting were replaced by acting oriented very much to 

the ‘here and now’, which consciously dealt with such notions as 

the distance and proximity of the character and the person. The 

use of the dialogue-based dramatic text gave way to an abundant 

variety of materials and disciplines with which one entered into 

a ‘dialogue’. 


josse de pauw 

One aspect of this theatrical renewal did not touch Radeis (or 

Josse De Pauw himself): the rise of the director as the pivotal figure 

in the production. A non-hierarchic structure was one of the 

prime elements of Radeis’ work, with the personal responsibility 

of each individual member forming the basis of a healthy operation. 

In this sense the company came closer to the actors’ theatre 

of the late eighties and early nineties (in such groups as 

Compagnie De Koe, De Vereniging van Enthousiasten voor het 

Reële en het Universele and TG Stan), in which the role of the 

director again lost out to that of the actor. This is probably one 

of the reasons why Radeis was only included as a footnote in the 

authorised history of theatrical renewal: the group had no explicit 

figurehead like Jan Lauwers (Epigonentheater), Van Hove 

(AKT), Gilis and Dehert (Arca), Decorte (Het Trojaanse Paard), 

Peyskens (Stuc) and Bogaerts and Vandervost (De Witte Kraai), 

who were able to articulate their artistic principles and present a 

human face. 

Josse De Pauw was never cast in the role of innovator even after 

Radeis broke up. Usurpation, in 1985, for instance, was received 

in the first instance as a child of its time, influenced by developments 

in physical theatre and in Jan Decorte’s work. De Pauw’s 

association with Decorte and the renewed Trojaanse Paard company 

was, moreover, encouraged by the parts De Pauw played 

for this company between 1986 and ‘88 (Het Stuk-Stuk and In 

Ondertussendoor). Apart from this the production was seen as a 

new stage in the personal development of his work. There was no 

mention of a possible contribution to a broader artistic context. 

It was only much later that Usurpation was included as a point 

of interest in the Flemish theatre canon. The situation is well 

summed up by Johan Wambacq’s statement in De Nieuwe 

Maand in 1986, that Usurpation was ‘the most sorely underestimated 

production’ of the previous ten years. 23 

De Pauw soon distanced himself from (post)modern director’s 

theatre. In Ward Comblez, which he wrote himself in 1988, he 

employed storytelling as an intimate, direct and highly personal 

form of theatre. The evolution towards a remote aesthetics in the 

directors’ theatres appeared no longer to suit him. But he was not 

the only one who started to write for himself. From the second 

half of the eighties increasing numbers of actors and directors 



took up the pen (e.g. Jan Decorte, Arne Sierens, Jan Fabre, Willy 

Thomas and Paul Pourveur in Flanders and Frans Strijards and 

Gerardjan Rijnders in the Netherlands) in order to develop a 

form of writing that did not fall behind the particular needs of 

the practices of the time. Taking its ability to be performed 

before an audience as the only theatrical criterion, these innovators 

desacralised drama and actively involved it in everyday practice. 

In the way text is handled in Ward Comblez and Het Kind 

van de Smid, and later in De meid slaan too, we see a number of 

mechanisms appear which came equally into use in a much 

broader innovative movement. For example, the text is on no 

account still unilaterally oriented towards performance. Diverse 

materials and disciplines are used in the work (e.g. song lyrics, 

historical documents and letters) or else they are given a new 

functionality (e.g. as a narrative or as speech). Lastly, these texts 

are very much part of a process, with events on stage evolving 

from moment to moment. In this process it comes down to 

sounding out what can be said or shown on stage: by means of a 

monologue or polyphonic approach, a view into autobiographical 

elements or the interweaving of lyricism, travel stories, drama 

and music. All this led to the quite original position De Pauw 

occupies as a playwright. His probing and narrating dramaturgy 

links up seamlessly with his quest for authenticity as a performer 

and actor. 

Whereas play-makers in the late eighties opted increasingly for a 

somewhat remote, aestheticising approach (with regard to the 

text, the characters and the audience), in Ward Comblez and Het 

Kind van de Smid, De Pauw appeared to be deliberately abandoning 

this course. Instead, he decided to almost completely 

remove the distance. In his narrations, the boundary between 

autobiography and text, actor and person and player and public, 

certainly became very thin. It was therefore not entirely unexpected 

that in 1989 he was asked by Frank Vercruyssen, Jolente 

De Keersmaeker, Waas Gramser and Damiaan De Schrijver to 

supervise their graduation project at the Antwerp Conservatory. 

This production, Jan, scènes uit het leven op het land (after 

Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya) was revived as a full production in the 

first season of Tg Stan. De Pauw’s quest for an honest, no-nonsense 

theatre was apparently also appreciated by a new generation 

of actors. In the 1990 season the group once again called in 


josse de pauw 

De Pauw to follow the rehearsals of Brigitje as a coach. It is 

notable that in theatre criticism and chronicles, De Pauw is only 

sporadically mentioned alongside such companies as 

Maatschappij Discordia (a loyal guest at Kaaitheater), Tg Stan 

(Matthias De Koning was a supervisor of the company’s first productions 

together with De Pauw), Cie De Koe and Dito’Dito. 

Nevertheless, in Usurpation there was already close collaboration 

with Mieke Verdin (now with Dito’Dito). De Pauw’s choice 

of Frank Vercruyssen and Willy Thomas (Dito’Dito and often as 

a guest at Tg Stan) for Het Kind van de Smid possibly says more 

about the relationship between De Pauw’s artistic outlook and 

that of other companies. On the occasion of the tenth anniversary 

of Tg Stan in December 2000 and the associated festive programme 

in which several ‘like-minded performers’ appeared, De 

Pauw was also one of the invitees. He performed W.H. Auden’s 

monologue Herodes, which contributed to the development of 

Larf. The affinity (let’s call it a similar colour rather than an 

explicit resemblance) is to be found primarily in a similar attitude 

to acting and the speaking of lines. The actor’s performance is 

transparent, and the person is clearly to be sensed behind the 

character. An important element is ensemble work, in which the 

actors’ pleasure in performing also remains palpable. Content 

and language are the most important means of communicating 

with each other and with the audience. Technical tours de force, 

a superfluous set and any form of aesthetics that hinders direct 

contact with the audience are avoided. Instead, space is given to 

playful irony, rhythm and deliberate speech. At its heart is the 

emancipated actor, who is himself responsible for what he wants 

to tell. The absence of a real director (there usually isn’t one, at 

most a coach/questioner) is closely connected to this. A great 

many differences can also be pointed out, of course: De Pauw 

likes to use a sort of sensual Flemish in which he cherishes every 

word on his lips before he lets go of it. In contrast to the sharp, 

rapid dialogues of Tg Stan and Cie De Koe, he gives us guarded, 

meticulously timed speech whereby the poetry of the written 

word also comes to the surface. 

With Weg in 1998 and Larf in 2000, De Pauw received the 

recognition as a performing artist that he deserved. The selection 

of the first piece for the 1999 Dutch-Flemish Theatre Festival, 

and the award, for both pieces, of the Océ Podium Prize in 2000, 

are the most obvious expressions of acclaim. Several days after 



the prize was awarded, De Pauw said, ‘I received this prize for 

my plays Weg and Larf, but I also see it as a crowning of my 

career. I really had the feeling that everyone was pleased to see 

me get it. I have quite often received unsightly little statues, but 

money – real money – is after all the most solid proof of appreciation 

one can get.’ 24 The publication of virtually all De Pauw’s 

writing in the book Werk, extremely well received by the literary 

critics, has also brought him much attention in 2000. 

One reason why De Pauw has in the past been honoured for 

his artistic work, but is seldom named on the list of recent theatre 

innovators, is that he operates largely alone. Because he has 

never had his own company, collective or theatre group, (except 

for Radeis), he is more often seen as an individual in a changing 

landscape. His recent appointment as artistic director of HetNet 

in Bruges may change this. Just like Tom Jansen and Dirk 

Roofthooft, De Pauw belongs to that group of actors in the Low 

Countries who have acquired a respected position of their own 

on the basis of their highly personal approach to and mastery of 

the profession. Association with a company, a particular director 

or a successful production is of secondary importance. To the 

outside world, De Pauw is in the first instance a versatile artist 

who writes, acts, makes films and plays, and all in a number of 

semi-casual working relationships. The fact that, precisely as a 

result of this position, he is constantly involved in the margins of 

theatrical renewal (most clearly in internationalisation, multidisciplinarity 

and the emancipation of the actor) usually goes unnoticed. 

As an artist, De Pauw has never presented himself as an 

innovator. He enthusiastically joins in the changes, or encourages 

them, and then soon completely changes direction. Throughout 

his twenty-year career, this artistic integrity, combined with the 

authenticity of his story, has been the most important thread 

recognised by critics, play-makers and audiences. The cancellation 

of two productions (Wolf, planned for 1985, and De 

vrouwen, for 1995) because proper collaboration could not be 

guaranteed, only serves to reinforce this. De Pauw is seen in the 

first place as an honest, independent and, above all, talented 

artist. Someone who prefers searching to knowing, probing to 

grasping and growing in the course of time to running in the 

race. In his introduction to Cesare Pavese’s text in Etcetera – the 

piece that is also quoted in the first programme book at HetNet 

– Josse De Pauw ends his description of urban life with the fol- 


josse de pauw 

lowing lines, which, to conclude, are also a fine expression of his 

own artistic path: 

‘Real walkers, with knee breeches and rucksacks, will call what 

I do sauntering. It’s fine by me. As long as I don’t have to have a 

goal, do not have to keep a record of the kilometres covered, and 

am allowed to forget the names of the significant places.’ 25 


notes 

1. Josse De Pauw. ‘Manifest. Van saters en eiknimfen’, in: Etcetera, 14, 56-67, 

August 1996, p. 36. 

2. Anne-Marie Van Wijnsberghe, interview with Josse De Pauw, 15 th November 

1996. 

3. Mark Schaevers. ‘Vroeger wou ik priester worden, nu God’, in: Humo, 20th 

December 1990. 

4. Anne-Marie Van Wijnsberghe, interview, 15 th November 1996. 

5. Johan Wambacq. ‘Radeis rijdt zich vrolijk te pletter’, in: Etcetera, 2, 5, January 

1984. 

6. Carlos Tindemans. The Flemish Theatre and the work of Radeis. Published by 

the Flemish Community, General Commission for International Cultural 

Cooperation, Brussels, Schaamte, 1984, p. 15. This booklet was published on the 

occasion of Radeis’ performance at the Olympic Arts Festival in Los Angeles and 

apart from various individual articles, is the only thing published about Radeis. 

7. Edward van Heer in Knack, 20 th March 1985. 

8. Marianne Van Kerkhoven in Sieben Stücke aus Flandern und den 

Niederlanden, Verlag der Autoren, Frankfurt am Main, 1993, p. 490. 

9. Josse De Pauw in conversation with Anton Segers, ‘Wat Josse zegt over wat 

men over Josse zegt’, in De Scène, 33, 310, September 1991, pp. 3-5. 

10. A conversation with Josse De Pauw and Peter Van Kraaij, ‘Het staat op de 

scène, dus we noemen het theater’, in Theaterschrift, 1991, p. 14. 

11. Josse De Pauw in conversation with Freddi Smekens, ‘Josse De Pauw: de durf 

van een rasacteur’, in Deze Week, 22 nd March, 1989. 

12. Roland Barthes, Fragments d’un discours amoureux, Editions du Seuil, Paris, 

1977, p. 14. 

13. Erwin Jans, ‘Het wachten van Josse De Pauw’, in Etcetera, 10, 37, April 

1992, 33. 

14. Jan Lampo, ‘Het Kind van de Smid’, in De Standaard, 23 rd February 1991. 

15. Hanny Alkema, ‘Fantasy als wapen’, in Toneel Teatraal, 112, 7, September 

1991, 33. 

16. Edward Van Heer, ‘Verre Familie’, in Knack, 9th January 1991. 

17. Jef Verheyen, ‘Het Kind van de Smid’ in De Morgen, 18 th January 1991. 

18. See also Jef Aerts, ‘Het drama voorbij? Analyse van theaterteksten van Josse 

De Pauw. Toneelmatigheid in Ward Comblez en Het Kind van de Smid.’ 

Unpublished MA dissertation, Leuven, 1995. 

19. Josse De Pauw in conversation with Jef Aerts, ‘Een groot cadeau’, in Tijd 

Cultuur, 3 rd May 2000. 

20. Josse De Pauw in conversation with Bart Vanegeren, ‘Ik ben een labiel konijn, 

een dolgedraaid insect’, in Humo, 3 rd October 2000). 

21. Anne Brumagne, ‘Josse De Pauw gaat aan de slag bij Victoria’, in De Morgen, 

29 th January 1999. 

22. Marianne Van Kerkhoven, in Het Net, seizoen 2000-2001, 2000, p. 9. 

23. Johan Wambacq, ‘Het nieuwe Vlaamse theater: pure Diogenes!’ in De 

Nieuwe Maand, no. 7, 1986. 

24. Josse De Pauw in conversation with Piet Piryns and Tine Vandendriessche, ‘Ik 

voel me goed als ik bekeken word’, in Knack, 29 th November 2000, p. 14. 

25. Josse De Pauw, ‘Manifest. Van saters en eiknimfen’, in Etcetera, 14, 56-57, 

August 1996, 36. 


WORK / THEATRE HISTORY 

Theatre 

The following are ordered by season with the title of the production in 

italics, the name of the author in brackets, the role played by Josse De 

Pauw (if known), the name of the director, the producer, and the location 

and date of the opening if known. 

1972-1973 

Repelsteeltje (T. Braun and T. Payer). Role. Director: René Verreth. 

MMT. / Helena of de levensvreugde (André Roussin). Role. Director: 

Frans Dijck. MMT. 

1973-1974 

Francesco Furioso (Mark Alexander). Role. Director: Eddy Van der 

Auwera. MMT. / De bende van Jan de Lichte (Pieter De Prins after Louis 

Paul Boon). Role. Director: Jaak Vissenaken. MMT. 

1976-1977 

Vreemd kind in je straat (Eva Bal). Role. Director: Eva Bal. Arca 

Nationaal Eigentijds Theater. / Emballage Kado (improvisation). Role. 

Director: Eva Bal. Producer: Rudi Van Vlaanderen. BKT / Johnny so 

long (Vivienne C. Welburn). Role. Director: Ronny Waterschoot. 

Producer: Rudi Van Vlaanderen. BKT. / Sierkus Radeis (Radeis). 

Concept and creation: Jan De Bruyne, Josse De Pauw, Erik De Volder, 

Pat van Hemelrijck. Production: Beursschouwburg for Mallemunt. (July 

1977, last performance date unknown). 

1977-1978 

Radeis wegens ziekte. Theater zonder veel cinema (Radeis). Concept and 

creation: Jan De Bruyne, Josse De Pauw, Dirk Pauwels, Pat van 

Hemelrijck. Production: Beursschouwburg in collaboration with 

Schaamte. (May 1978 – March 1981). 

1978-1979 

Tijdelijk Geschift (improvisation). Role. Director: Eva Bal. Producer: 

Rudi van Vlaanderen. BKT. 

1979-1980 

Gag-o-matic (Radeis). Concept and creation: Jan De Bruyne, Josse De 

Pauw, Dirk Pauwels, Pat van Hemelrijck. Production: Schaamte. (July 

1979 – February 1980). / Ik wist niet dat Engeland zo mooi was 


work / theatre history 

(Radeis). Concept and creation: Jan De Bruyne, Josse De Pauw, Dirk 

Pauwels, Pat van Hemelrijck. Production: Schaamte. (21 July 1979 – 

February 1983). 

1980-1981 

Vogels (Radeis). Concept and creation: Georges Brouckaert, Josse De 

Pauw, Dirk Pauwels, Pat van Hemelrijck. Production: Schaamte. (14 

February 1981 – May 1984) 

1981-1982 

Echafaudages (Radeis). Concept and creation: Georges Brouckaert, 

Josse De Pauw, Dirk Pauwels, Pat van Hemelrijck. Production: 

Schaamte. Co-production: Shaffy Theater, Amsterdam. (first version 23 

September 1981- January 1983). 

1984-1985 

Usurpation (Josse de Pauw). Actors: Josse De Pauw (man), Mieke 

Verdin (woman). Music: Peter Vermeersch and Danny Van Hoeck. Set: 

Gorik Lindemans. Director: Josse De Pauw. Production: Schaamte. Coproduction: 

Beursschouwburg and Lantaren/Venster, Rotterdam. 

Beursschouwburg. 7 March 1995. 

1985-1986 

Wolf (Josse De Pauw). Role. Music: Peter Vermeersch and Danny Van 

Hoeck. Dramaturge: Marianne Van Kerkhoven. Director: Jan Lauwers. 

Production: Schaamte. (unperformed). 

1986-1987 

Onder het melkwoud (Dylan Thomas, translated by Hugo Claus). 

Adaptation: Aat Ceelen. Role: Kapitein Kat. Music: Thijs van der Poll, 

Bart van Rosmalen. Orkater. Opening: 20 March 1987. / Het Stuk-Stuk 

(Jan Decorte). Role: Finnish Diplomat. Director: Jan Decorte. Jan 

Decorte and Co. Beursschouwburg. 15 January 1987. 

1987-1988 

In Ondertussendoor (Jan Decorte). Role. Director: Jan Decorte. Jan 

Decorte and Co. Beursschouwburg. 11 November 1987. 

1988-1989 

Ward Comblez. He do the life in different voices (Josse De Pauw in collaboration 

with Peter Van Kraaij). Role: Ward Comblez. Set: Francky 

Deconinck. Music: Peter Vermeersch. Dramaturge: Marianne Van 

Kerkhoven. Director: Peter Van Kraaij. Production: Kaaitheater. Coproduction: 

Lantaren/Venster, Rotterdam, Beurschouwburg and De 

Voorziening, Groningen. Beursschouwburg. 17 March 1989. 


josse de pauw 

1990-1991 

Het Kind van de Smid (Josse De Pauw and Peter Van Kraaij). Actors: 

Josse De Pauw: ‘Het Kind’, Willy Thomas: ‘Commentator’, Frank 

Vercruyssen: ‘Pomp’, José Verheire: ‘Smid’. Music: Alfred Schnittke. 

Dramaturge: Marianne Van Kerkhoven. Director: Peter Van Kraaij. 

Production: Kaaitheater. Co-production: Felix Meritis, Amsterdam, 

Kaaitheater. 18 December 1990. / Het Trio in Mi-Bémol (Eric Rohmer). 

Role: Paul. Music: Mozart. Director: Jan Ritsema. Production: 

Kaaitheater. Kaaitheater. 17 May 1991. / Brigitje (after Gorki, Kroetz, 

Slavkin, Timmermans, Lorca, Muller, Shakespeare). Coaching: Josse De 

Pauw. Tg Stan. Théatre de la Balsamine. 23 May 1991) 

1992-1993 

De meid slaan (after Baudelaire, Lucebert, Sidney Michaels, Strindberg, 

Kotaro Takamura, Josse De Pauw, Tom Jansen). Actors: Josse De Pauw, 

Tom Jansen, Fumiyo Ikeda. Director: Josse De Pauw, Tom Jansen. 

Production: Kaaitheater, Nationaal Fonds Amsterdam. Kaaitheater. 17 

Februari 1993. 

1993-1994 

Exiles (James Joyce). Role: Richard Rowan. Director: Peter Van Kraaij. 

Kaaitheater. 10 November 1993. / Momentum (text contributions by 

Josse De Pauw). Music: Eric Sleichim. Set: Trudo Engels. Production: 

Blindman Kwartet. Co-production: Kaaitheater. Kaaitheater. 21 January 

1994. / De Oplosbare Vis (Witold Gombrowicz). Lyrics: Josse De Pauw. 

Actors: Dirk Van Dijck and Rijszard Turbiasz. Music: Peter Vermeersch. 

Production: Ensemble Walpurgis. Co-production: Kaaitheater. DeSingel. 

23 February 1994. 

1994-1995 

De verhuizing (Chantal Akerman). Role. Director: Jurgen Gosch. 

Production: Kaaitheater. Kaaitheater. 11 January 1995. / De Vrouwen 

(after Michel De Ghelderode). Design: An Weckx. Actor, director and 

concept: Josse De Pauw. Production: Kaaitheater, NTG. (unperformed). / 

Trots vlees (James Purdy, Josse De Pauw, Tom Jansen). Role. Director: 

Josse De Pauw and Tom Jansen. Production: Laagland. Executive producer: 

Monty, Antwerp. Co-production: Needcompany. Monty. 14 June 

1995. 

1995-1996 

De Wijze van Zaal 7 (Hans Aarsman). Actor: Dirk Roofthooft. 

Dramaturge: Josse De Pauw. Director: Tom Jansen. Production: 

Laagland. Co-production: Nationaal Fonds Amsterdam. Vooruit. 23 

February 1996. 


work / theatre history 

1997-1998 

Wolokolamsker Chaussee I-V (Heiner Müller). Role. Director: Peter 

Van Kraaij. Production: Theater Antigone and Kaaitheater. Kaaitheater. 

4 February 1998. / Weg (Josse De Pauw). Role. Director: Josse De Pauw 

and Peter Vermeersch. Music: Peter Vermeersch. Musicians: Peter 

Vermeersch and Pierre Vervloesem. Production: Kaaitheater. Kaaitheater. 

9 June 1998. 

1998-1999 

Weg (Josse De Pauw). Role. Director: Josse De Pauw. Music: Peter 

Vermeersch, Pierre Vervloesem. Production: Kaaitheater. Kaaitheaterstudio’s. 

9 juni 1998. / Zetelkat (Josse De Pauw). Actors: Dimitri Leue, 

Tine Reymer and Wouter Hendrickx. Production: Arlette Van Overvelt. 

Dramaturge: Griet Op de Beeck. Production: luxemburg. CC Berchem. 

30 January 1999. 

1999-2000 

Larf (Josse De Pauw). Actors: Josse De Pauw, Tom Jansen, Dirk 

Roofthooft. Director: Josse De Pauw. Music: Peter Vermeersch and The 

Flat Earth Society. Production: Victoria. Vooruit, 4 May 2000. 

2000-2001 

Übung (Josse De Pauw). Actors in film: Josse De Pauw (Robert), Lies 

Pauwels (Ria), Dirk Roofthooft (Ivo), Bernard Van Eeghem (Olivier), 

George-Alexander van Dam (György), Carly Wijs (Rolande). Actors on 

stage: A.M. Bogaerts (Ivo), Romy Billion (Ria), Louise Carpentier 

(Rolande), Dimitri Dauwens (Olivier), Elke De Rijcke (György), Jasper 

Sturtewagen (Robert). Production: Victoria. De Balie (Amsterdam) 27 

April 2001. 

Kind (Tom Jansen), Actors: Josse De Pauw, Tom Jansen, Director: Jan 

Lauwers. Production: Het Net. Het Net, 21 June 2001. 

Film parts and films directed 

1982 

L’union fait la force (series of 10 short films). Role. Director: Radeis. 

1983 

De stille oceaan. Role. Director: Digna Sinke. 

1984 

Wildschut. Role. Director: Bobby Erhart. 

Un film. Role: Director: Erik Pauwels. 


josse de pauw 

1985 

De wisselwachter. Role. Director: Jos Stelling. 

Un Ange Passe. Role. Director: Marie André. 

1986 

Skin. Role. Director: Guido Hendrickx. 

Abel. Extra. Director: Alex Van Warmerdam. 

1987 

Crazy Love. Role. Director: Dominique Deruddere. 

1988 

Sailors don’t cry. Role. Director: Marc Didden. 

1989 

L’Air de Rien. Role. Director: Mary Jiminez. 

Wait until Spring, Bandini. Role. Director: Dominique Deruddere. 

1991 

Toto le Héros. Role. Director: Jaco van Dormael. 

1992 

Vinaya. Role. Directors: Josse De Pauw and Peter Van Kraaij. 

1993 

Just Friends. Role. Director: Marc-Henri Wajnberg. 

1995 

Hoogste tijd. Role. Director: Frans Weisz. 

De vliegende Hollander. Role. Director: Jos Stelling. 

1996 

Le regardeur. Role. Director: Erik Pauwels. 

1997 

Hombres Complicados. Role. Director: Dominique Deruddere. 

1998 

S. Role. Director: Guido Henderickx. 

1999 

Iedereen beroemd. Role. Director: Dominique Deruddere. 


SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Archive material 

Vlaams Theater Instituut. Schaamte and Kaaitheater archives. Laagland 

archives. Beursschouwburg archives. Archives and Museum van het 

Vlaamse Cultuurleven Antwerp. Interviews with De Pauw by Anne- 

Marie Van Wijnsberghe (15 November 1996 and 21 February 1997). 

Plays by De Pauw 

De Pauw, Josse. Ward Comblez. He do the life in different voices. 

Leuven: Kritak, 1989. 

De Pauw, Josse and Peter Van Kraaij. Het Kind van de Smid. Leuven: 

Kritak, 1990. 

De Pauw, Josse. Ward Comblez. He do the life in different voices, in 

Theaterteksten: sieben Stücke aus Flandern end den Niederlanden 

(translation Petra Serwe), Frankfurt am Main: Verlag der Autoren, 

1993. 

De Pauw, Josse. De oplosbare vis, song texts in programme brochure by 

Ensemble Walpurgis, Antwerp, 1994. 

De Pauw, Josse. Ward Comblez/L’enfant du Forgeron (translation 

Monique Nagielkopf). Amsterdam: International Theatre & Film 

Books, 1998. 

Other writings by De Pauw 

‘1001 notities’, in De Standaard der letteren, published monthly from 

16 January, 1997. 

‘Auteur en acteur Josse De Pauw duikt onder in de Chineze poëzie’, in: 

Knack, 29 April 1992. 

‘Een doodnormaal land, Josse De Pauw in Japan’, in Nieuw Wereldtijdschrift, 

6, 1996: 28-37. 

‘Gas’, in Burengerucht. Het Vlaams verhaal doet weer de ronde (collection 

of short stories), Leuven: Kritak, 1990. 

‘Geen sprookje’ in Les Cuisiniers Dangereux (collection of comic strips 

with drawings by Eric Joris), Roularta Books, 1996. 

‘Het dagboek van Josse De Pauw: Big in Japan’, in Humo, 27 May 

1992. 

‘Het dagboek van Josse De Pauw: Love me tender, love me true’, in 

Humo, 2 June 1992. 


josse de pauw 

De Pauw, Josse and Mark Schaevers. ‘John Berger: In de hemel is solidariteit 

niet belangrijk, Maar in de hel wel’, in Humo, 5 February 1991. 

‘Ik zag Jef een keer life en er was niks veranderd: 5 x denken aan Jef’, in 

Etcetera, 19, 1987: 66. 

‘Manifest. Van saters en eiknimfen’, in Etcetera, 13, 56-57, 1996: 36-37. 

Werk, Antwerp: Houtekiet, 2000. 

Articles on Radeis 

Alleene, Carlos. ‘Buitenlandse interesse voor de grappen en grollen van 

Radeis’, in De Spectator, 11 August 1979. 

Arteel, Roger. ‘Radeis is een manier van leven’, in Knack, 8 December 

1982. 

‘Au cloître des Célestins: “Echafaudages”, un pièce qui nous vient de 

Belgique’, in La Marseillaise, 2 August 1983. 

Brès, Martine. ‘“Echafaudages” par Radeis. Quand le quotidien bascule 

dans le délire’, in Le Dauphiné, 2 August 1983. 

Colgan, Gerry. ‘I Didn’t know The Continent was So Beautiful at TCD’, 

in The Irish Times, 28 September 1982. 

De Vos, Jozef. ‘Het cartoontheater van Radeis’, in Ons Erfdeel, 2, 1982, 

pp 295-197. 

Dowling, Noeleen. ‘Desert island magic’, in Evening Press, 28 

September 1982. 

Draka, Sylvie. ‘Flemish Clowns set up shop in fields of folly’, Los 

Angeles Times, 30 June 1989. 

Granger, Annie. ‘Un échafaudage de Rad(e)is, in Le Soleil de Colombie, 

8 June 1984. 

Levis, Jeff. ‘Brazil and Belgium are worlds apart’, in The Daily Journal, 

2 August 1981. 

Mallems, Alex. ‘Humor met de broek omhoog’, in Tmuzet, June 1984. 

Mn. ‘“Vogels”: de drôles d’oiseaux’, in Alsace, 4 December 1982. 

Myler, Thomas. ‘A pot pourri of fun, frolics and zaniness’, in Evening 

Herald, 28 September 1982. 

Pascal, Fabienne; ‘Echafaudages. Quatre Belges en folie’, in Avignon 

Festival, 1983. 

Paret, Pierre. ‘“Echaufaudages” par la compagnie Radeis’, in La 

Marseillaise, 2 August 1983. 

Post, Hans-Maarten. ‘De oogst van Radeis’, in Oor (Belgica issue), 19 

October 1985. 

Singerman, Deborah. ‘Same play, new beach’, in TV and Entertainment 

Times, 16-22 February 1983. 

Siskind, Jacob. ‘Flemish trio, Radeis, goes far beyond mime’, in The 

Citizen, Ottawa, 1984. 


selected bibliography 

Siskind, Jacob. ‘Mime company unleashes flood of emotion in spectacular 

show’, in The Citizen, Ottawa, 2 June 1984. 

Tindemans, Carlos. ‘Exit Radeis’, in Etcetera, 8, 1984, pp. 59-60. 

Tindemans, Carlos. The Flemish Theatre and the work of Radeis. 

Brussels: The Flemish Community, General Commission for International 

Cultural Cooperation, 1984. 

Van der Wee, Anne. ‘Theatergroep Radeis: altijd goed voor een genereuze 

grabbel humor’, in Intermediair (weekend edition), 28 October 1983. 

‘Vlaamse Radeis gedijt in internationale teatertuin’, in De Standaard, 17 

June 1981. 

Walsch, Stephen. ‘Wish we were here’, in Irish Independant, 28 

September 1982. 

Wambacq, Johan. ‘Radeis rijdt zich vrolijk te pletter’, in Etcetera, 5, 

1984: 8-10. 

Weatherly, Nancy. ‘This is no ordinary radish’, in North Shore News, 17 

June 1984. 

Articles on De Pauw 

Aerts, Jef. ‘Het drama voorbij?’ Analyse van de theaterteksten van Josse 

De Pauw. Toneelmatigheid in Ward Comblez. He do the life in different 

voices and Het Kind van de Smid (diss.). Leuven: KUL, 1995. 

Alkema, Hanny. ‘Fantasie als wapen: Acteur Josse De Pauw’, in Toneel 

Theatraal, 7, 1991: 30-35. 

Baeten, Marleen. ‘Een verlangen naar onsterfelijkheid. De oefeningen 

van Weg en Kung Fu’, in Etcetera, 65, 1998: 15-20. 

Eeckhout, Bart. ‘Exiles: een dubbele bespreking’, in Documenta, I, 

1994: 4-18. 

Franco, Judith. ‘Josse De Pauw, kunstenaar uit één stuk’, in Marie- 

Claire, December 1993. 

Huys, Jacky. ‘DUO: Peter Van Kraaij en Josse De Pauw’, in Knack, 3 

November 1993. 

Jans, Erwin. ‘Het wachten van Josse De Pauw’, in Etcetera, 37, 1992: 33. 

Laevaerts, Frieda. ‘Josse De Pauw: ik neem de mensen zoals ze zijn’, in 

Exclusief, September-October, 1993. 

Oranje, Hans. ‘Treiterliefde in een verlichte linnenkast’, in Trouw, 26 

March 1985. 

Schaevers, Mark. ‘Josse De Pauw: ‘Vroeger wou ik priester worden, nu 

God’, in Humo, 20 December 1990. 

Segers, Anton. ‘Wat Josse zegt over wat men over Josse zegt’, in De 

Scène, 310, 1991: 4-5. 

Six, Fred. ‘Josse De Pauw, alias Ward Comblez’, in Ons Erfdeel, 4, 

1989: 613-615. 


josse de pauw 

Van Kerkhoven, Marianne and Sigrid Bousset. ‘Het staat op de scène, 

dus noemen we het theater: een gesprek met Josse De Pauw en Peter 

Van Kraaij’, in Theaterschrift, I, 1991: 11-24. 

Van Kerkhoven, Marianne. ‘De reis naar de taal: Het werk van Josse De 

Pauw’, in Ons Erfdeel, I, 1993: 32-39. 

Van Kerkhoven, Marianne. ‘Spelen met het risico om over de grens te 

gaan: een gesprek met Jansen & De Pauw’, in Theaterschrift, 3, 1993: 

153-171. 

Van Kerkhoven, Marianne. ‘Tussen oog en oor. Een gesprek met Peter 

Van Kraaij’, in Theaterschrift, 4, 1993, pp 117-139. 

Van Wijnsberghe, Anne-Marie. Josse De Pauw: een theaterbiografie 

(diss). Wilrijk: UIA, 1997. 

Vander Veken, Ingrid. ‘De poëtische epiek van Josse De Pauw’, in Kunst 

en Cultuur, March 1992: 30-31. 

Verduyckt, Paul. ‘Evenals een kind van drie’, in Knack, 14 June 1995. 

Verstockt, Dirk. ‘Het Kind van de Smid’, in Etcetera, 33, 1991: 54-56. 



This is a Vlaams Theater Instituut publication, in association with the Theatre 

Studies departments at the four Flemish universities: U.I.Antwerp, University of 

Ghent, K.U.Leuven, V.U.Brussels. 

Editor in chief 

Geert Opsomer 

Editorial board 

Pol Arias, Annie Declerck, Ronald Geerts, Erwin Jans, Rudi Laermans, 

Kristel Marcoen, Klaas Tindemans, Frank Peeters, Luk van den Dries, 

Marianne Van Kerkhoven, Jaak van Schoor 

Design 

Inge Ketelers 

Photogravure and printing 

Cultura, Wetteren 

Print run 

500 copies. 

Kritisch Theater Lexicon 14 e, a portrait of Josse De Pauw 

Written and researched by 

Jef Aerts and Anne-Marie Van Wijnsberghe 

Translation 

Gregory Ball 

Correction 

Gregory Ball, Katrien Darras 

Editor 

Geert Opsomer 

Reader 

Griet Vandewalle 

Photo-portrait of Josse De Pauw 

Jérôme de Perlinghi (photo from the ‘20 jaar Kaaitheater’ series) 

Photos 

p. 29: Kaaitheater archives/ p. 30: Michiel Hendryckx, Kaaitheater archives / 

p. 30: Corneel Maria Ryckeboer, Lies Willaert / p. 32: Patrick De Spiegelaere 

Vlaams Theater Instituut v.z.w., Sainctelettesquare 19, 1000 Brussel, 

tel: +32.2/201.09.06, fax: +32.2/203.02.05 

e-mail: info@vti.be website: http://www.vti.be 

ISBN 90-74351-27-1 D/2001/4610/05 

No part of this book may be reproduced and/or published without the prior permission 

of the publisher. 

The Vlaams Theater Instituut is a centre for research, documentation, advice and 

the promotion of the performing arts. It is subsidised by the Arts Department of 

the Ministry of the Flemish Community and is sponsored by Océ Belgium. 

This publication was created with the support of The Theatre Festival. 

A translation of: Josse De Pauw, Vlaams Theater Instituut, Brussels, 1998. 

© 2001 / Registered publisher: Klaas Tindemans

De Pauw (Engels) - depot voor het VTi

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