Billy's Joy
© Wonge Bergmann

Billy’s Joy – A HYSTORY

Authors
Text Victor Afung Lauwers
Music Maarten Seghers

Creators
Jan Lauwers, Grace Ellen Barkey, Emily Hehl, Nao Albet, Gonzalo Cunill, Romy Louise Lauwers, Juan Navarro, Maarten Seghers, Meron Verbelen, Martha Gardner, Elke Janssens 

Production 
Koen De Saeger, Raphael Noel, Jérémy Michel, Ditten Lerooij, Sharlotta Seeligmüller, Leander Schönweger

A Needcompany Production
Coproduction ImpulsTanz (Vienna), Perpodium (Antwerp), Le Quartz (Brest), Gdańsk Shakespeare Theatre (Gdansk),Teatro Central (Sevilla), Teatro Español y Naves del Español en Matadero (Madrid), CC Brugge (Bruges)
With the support of the Flemish authorities, Flemish Community Commission (VGC) and the Belgian Federal Government’s Tax Shelter via Cronos Invest

Needcompany office
Pieter D'Hooghe, Rune Floryn, Vibe Stalpaert

Shakespeare has been a controversial artist for over 400 years. Sometimes he is the greatest ever, other times he is dismissed as an anti-Semitic misogynist who especially got a kick out of conceiving violent scenes. That's what Billy's Violence covered extensively. In the eighteenth century, people detested the violence and dark twists in his tragedies. Consequently, these were shamelessly rewritten. Romeo and Juliet lived happily ever after! This inspired Needcompany to ask Victor Afung Lauwers to read the comedies and see what they can still mean in our time - a time of great controversies, vulgar polemics, cancel culture, structural racism, climate change, war. What is there left to laugh at? Is humour the coward's weapon or a form of activism?

 

"Following Billy's Violence, which dealt with tragedies, I was asked to write a comedy based on Shakespeare's comedies. I wanted to write about 'reconciliation'. It is a central theme in the comedies. But reconciliation proved impossible without love! So, I pulled Romeo, that 'star-cross'd lover', out of his tragic story and brought him to the place of our comedy: Fairyland. Fairyland, however, turns out to be torn apart and ravaged by fragmentation. Having arrived, Romeo loses his language. Henceforth, he speaks hybrid English, or 'Globish'. He goes in search of his beloved JULIET. But JULIET has been expelled from the Symbolic Order, from the edifice of narrative itself! Still, Romeo wants to fulfil his narrative destiny by turning himself aside: he wants to turn himself aside to overcome that which separates him from JULIET in death (primarily political divisions and global warming). But... Romeo cannot kill himself because he is in a comedy! Naked and isolated, Romeo must keep looking for love until someone ends him... That someone is Bolingbroke, later Henry IV from the King's Dramas. Romeo becomes Richard II and they share each other's fate: Romeo, lovingly disowned, and Richard, lovelessly deposed.

 

Billy's Joy: a liquid comedy, a 'HYSTORY', a battle of attrition. Something is rotten in Fairyland!"

- Victor Afung Lauwers

It is incredible to witness the imagination and new perspectives on Shakespeare with which Jan Lauwers brings these multi-layered scenes to life - Kurier ****

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Billy’s Joy – A HYSTORY

Authors
Text Victor Afung Lauwers
Music Maarten Seghers

Creators
Jan Lauwers, Grace Ellen Barkey, Emily Hehl, Nao Albet, Gonzalo Cunill, Romy Louise Lauwers, Juan Navarro, Maarten Seghers, Meron Verbelen, Martha Gardner, Elke Janssens 

Production 
Koen De Saeger, Raphael Noel, Jérémy Michel, Ditten Lerooij, Sharlotta Seeligmüller, Leander Schönweger

A Needcompany Production
Coproduction ImpulsTanz (Vienna), Perpodium (Antwerp), Le Quartz (Brest), Gdańsk Shakespeare Theatre (Gdansk),Teatro Central (Sevilla), Teatro Español y Naves del Español en Matadero (Madrid), CC Brugge (Bruges)
With the support of the Flemish authorities, Flemish Community Commission (VGC) and the Belgian Federal Government’s Tax Shelter via Cronos Invest

Needcompany office
Pieter D'Hooghe, Rune Floryn, Vibe Stalpaert

Tour dates

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July 2023
05 JulBrussels BEMILL (Needcompany) Try-Out
11 JulVienna ATImPulsTanz Premiere
13 JulVienna ATImPulsTanz
14 JulVienna ATImPulsTanz
August 2023
04 AugGdańsk PLThe Shakespeare Festival
05 AugGdańsk PLThe Shakespeare Festival
November 2023
10 NovSevilla ESTeatro Central
11 NovSevilla ESTeatro Central
28 NovBruges BECC Brugge Premiere
December 2023
01 DecGhent BENTGent
January 2024
23 JanBrest FRLe Quartz
24 JanBrest FRLe Quartz
February 2024
09 FebMadrid ESNaves del Español en Matadero
10 FebMadrid ESNaves del Español en Matadero
11 FebMadrid ESNaves del Español en Matadero
April 2024
19 AprStrombeek-Bever BECC Strombeek
20 AprStrombeek-Bever BECC Strombeek
June 2024
29 JunBarcelona ESTeatre Lliure / Grec festival
30 JunBarcelona ESTeatre Lliure / Grec festival Double bill
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