ARCHIVES 2014 / An Old Monk

A title that can be taken two different ways for this show, a dramatic concert that has three musicians working alongside an actor/dancer. The titular old monk is the show's main character who, despite his age, never gives up, especially when music makes him feel as if he could dance like a young man again; but it is also a reference to another Monk, Thelonious, the genius jazz musician who would interrupt his own shows for some inspired dancing. This unique work that Josse de Pauw, Kris Defoort, Nicolas Thys, and Lander Gyselinck created together is a delight for the heart, the soul, and the mind. Unique because in it words and notes complete one another, even listen to one another sometimes, without the ones or the others taking precedence. The story of this ageing man who doesn't want to lose his will to live is deeply touching; he makes heavy use of irony and humour, he has fun and we have fun with him, and he makes us all witnesses to that moment when we aren't what we used to be anymore but aren't yet what we are going to be. The musicians play with him, in every meaning of the word, they improvise and cover some of Thelonious Monk's standards, they surprise him and get him dancing again, they breathe life and energy back into him, and are as much actors of the show as he is. By daring to display his own ageing body, Josse de Pauw fully commits to an approach full of humanity and emotion, between generous laughter and hidden tears, an approach whose elegance lies in its goal to “lift those old bones higher than one would expect.”

An actor for the theatre and the cinema, a short story writer and a playwright, a director, a dramatist, a librettist, and a dramaturge, Josse de Pauw is all that and more. In 1977 he co-founded, along with Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Jan Lauwers, the Radeis collective, which would be at the forefront of a revolution in the world of Flemish theatre by leaving behind the dark and confined spaces of theatre houses to play in public spaces and take part in people's daily lives. Their performances often substitute bodies and gestures for words, their elaborate slowness standing in contrast to the never-ending movement of the city. Starting in 1984, he began a series of collaborations (such as Schaamte, which would later become the Kaaitheater) and of solo works. He tirelessly moved from one stage to the next, refusing to ever “redo” something he'd done before, and wishing his different shows to remain forever in a sort of unfinished state. After adapting and playing in Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano, directed by Guy Cassiers, he turned to a series of interviews given by Hugo Claus to create The Claus Version. In the past few years he's worked primarily on what he calls “dramatic concerts,” such as The Soul of Termites and The Hanged, two LOD productions, in which music plays a central role as a partner to the text and the actors' performances.

Kris Defoort studied early music, playing the recorder, and jazz, by learning to play the piano. A composer and noted improviser, he lived in New York before moving back to Belgium to head, among others, the six-man ensemble KD's Basement Party and the trio KD's Decade. A lover of literature, he has composed operas, including The Woman Who Walked Into Doors, based on the novel by Roddy Doyle, House of the Sleeping Beauties, inspired by the works of Japanese novelist Yasunari Kawabata, as well as shows like The Brodsky Concerts, based on the writings of Russian poet Joseph Brodsky, which he created with actor Dirk Roofthooft. All three were LOD productions. It is with the Kris Defoort Trio that he improvises every night the music of An Old Monk, his first collaboration with Josse de Pauw.

Thelonious Monk is famous not only as a jazz composer, but also as a pianist. A groundbreaking musician who didn't care for the conventions of composition and performance, whose audacity and his freedom made him one of the masters of modern jazz. Upsetting melody, harmony, and rhythm, many of his songs remain jazz standards to this day. Among them are “Round Midnight”, “Straight, No Chaser”, “Blue Monk”, and “Ask Me Now”, four of the dozens of songs he recorded on more than fifty records. He died in 1982, aged only 65.

Jean-François Perrier, April 2014