Billy’s Joy

For Billy's Violence (2021), Victor Afung Lauwers researched ten of William 'Billy' Shakespeare’s tragedies and rewrote them into a series of intimate dialogues, violent and loving, centred on women. For Billy's Joy, he dives into the comedies. Directed by Jan Lauwers and with the cast of Billy's Violence. 

"There are many facets of joy. I want to focus on one of them, that of reconciliation. Reconciliation is a benchmark of society. Without the ability to reconcile with each other, we lose our dignity. It is also a major theme in Shakespeare's comic oeuvre.  

The idea that comedies are funny and tragedies are not, is actually a misinterpretation. The only poetic difference between comedy and tragedy (according to Aristotle) is that a comedy ends well, and a tragedy ends badly. Whether the beginning and middle of a story is sombre or cheerful is of no consequence." – Victor Afung Lauwers 

• Needcompany is an artist house founded in 1986 by Jan Lauwers and Grace Ellen Barkey. Since 2001, Maarten Seghers has been associated with Needcompany. This central trio of creators performs theatre, dance, performance, visual art, texts, etc. Kaaitheater has been presenting their multidisciplinary, multilingual and international work ever since the start. For example, you could recently see War and Turpentine (2018), All the Good (2020) and of course Billy's Violence (2021) on our stage.