Theatre
“With a minimum of song and dance, no need to overact and a magnetic onstage presence, (Viviane De Muynck) needs little more than a gesture, a look or simply silence to show us the very depths of her characters”.
Concept and directed by: Jan Lauwers and Viviane De Muynck | Cast: Gaby Hernández | A production by Needcompany | Coproduced by: the Teatro a Mil Foundation.
Viviane de Muyinck
Creator, director and star
The grande dame of European theater
This Belgian theater, movie and television director (1946) began a long-standing artistic collaboration with director Jan Lauwers and Needcompany in 1993, touring the world with them in starring roles. As well as her work as an actress, she has also directed theater plays and musicals. In 2018, she won the Ultima Award for General Cultural Merit from the Flemish government. She is considered the grande dame of European theater.
Jan Lauwers
Jan Lauwers, creator and director:
A multidisciplinary artist
Born in Antwerp in 1957, he is one of the most avant-garde artists on the European artistic scene. He founded Needcompany in 1986, a company that is involved in various aspects of the performing arts (theater, dance, performance and the visual arts) and is a pioneer of multilingual productions (Dutch, English, French, Spanish…), with an emphasis on post-dramatic texts. As well as his work in theater, he has had an important career in the visual arts and has since 2018 started working in opera.
NeedCompany
Needcompany, the company:
In search of new styles
Created in 1986 by Belgian artists Jan Lauwers and Grace Ellen Barkey and later joined by Maarten Sehgers, this multidisciplinary group’s work is mainly based on avant-garde scripts that are constantly pushing the boundaries of art and promoting its importance in society. Their work has been presented and lauded throughout Europe and the world.
- Viviane de Muynck’s performance is extraordinary. She has had the privilege of watching her character change since the first version she was in in 1999 and seeing how the words in her monologue, initially written in 1922, are even more relevant today. “When I started out performing Molly Bloom, I was much younger and I played a more emotional version of her, extremely influenced by my admiration for the author. Now I concentrate more on her strength, her independence, her humor, her wisdom. She isn’t submissive to the men she talks about. Her way of looking at the male world is shrewd, loving and funny. Is it sensual? Yes. She’s a free spirit who refuses to be chained up by male domination”, said the actress in an interview with El País, Spain.
- Its provocative script is like no other, not only because of its subject matter but also because of its style: it is written without almost any punctuation, making it a declamation hard to even take a breath and as direct as a bullet made of words. “It is clear that a woman wants to be embraced 20 times a day almost as a way of staying young it doesn’t matter by whom as long as she is in love with or loved by someone if the man you love isn’t always in there by God I was thinking that I would go to the dock myself on a dark night where no one knows me to screw a sailor recently arrived from the high seas who was desperate for it and who wouldn’t give a damn who I was and was only interested in getting it on in a doorway somewhere”.
Theater monologue: This is a speech by a single person, normally to express their thoughts out loud, although sometimes also to address another person or the audience. It comes from the Greek words monos (alone or solitary) and lógos (speech), and also serves, from the characters’ point of view, as a way of expressing feelings lyrically.
- Find out more about the work of Needcompany on their Vimeo Channel.
Facebook: facebook.com/needcompany
Instagram: @needcompanyarts
Web site, https://www.needcompany.org/en
COLABORA
Molly Bloom (versión belga)
By Viviane De Muynck and Jan Lauwers, based on ‘Penelope’, the final chapter of Ulysses by James Joyce
- Belgium
- Spanish
- 80 minutes
- + 16
A magnificent monologue that, in these #MeToo times, reinforces the need for equality for women in the voices of two great actresses: Belgian Viviane De Muynck and Chilean Gaby Hernández.
In 1999, Belgian artists Viviane De Muynck and Jan Lauwers began working on a theater version of the last chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses, a radical monologue spoken by Molly Bloom, the unfaithful wife of the principal character, Leopold Bloom. What they did not expect, though, was for the author’s grandson to send them a series of offensive letters forbidding them from using this material. Nevertheless, they managed to hold secret dramatic readings of this version in Germany, which were well-received by critics.
Twenty-two years later, once the copyright on James Joyce’s work had expired, De Muynck became Molly Bloom once again. At 74, one of the grande dames of European theater performs in a play that, in these #MeToo times, reinforces the need to talk about emancipation, equality and sexual freedom for women. She is not the only one to bring the leading lady to life though: Jan Lauwers, who has taken part in the festival before in 2009, with a touching version of El cuarto de Isabella also starring Viviane De Muynck, directs a version starring renowned Chilean actress Gaby Hernández.
“With a minimum of song and dance, no need to overact and a magnetic onstage presence, (Viviane De Muynck) needs little more than a gesture, a look or simply silence to show us the very depths of her characters”.
Molly Bloom (versión belga)
By Viviane De Muynck and Jan Lauwers, based on ‘Penelope’, the final chapter of Ulysses by James Joyce
- Belgium
- Spanish
- 80 minutes
- + 16
A magnificent monologue that, in these #MeToo times, reinforces the need for equality for women in the voices of two great actresses: Belgian Viviane De Muynck and Chilean Gaby Hernández.
In 1999, Belgian artists Viviane De Muynck and Jan Lauwers began working on a theater version of the last chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses, a radical monologue spoken by Molly Bloom, the unfaithful wife of the principal character, Leopold Bloom. What they did not expect, though, was for the author’s grandson to send them a series of offensive letters forbidding them from using this material. Nevertheless, they managed to hold secret dramatic readings of this version in Germany, which were well-received by critics.
Twenty-two years later, once the copyright on James Joyce’s work had expired, De Muynck became Molly Bloom once again. At 74, one of the grande dames of European theater performs in a play that, in these #MeToo times, reinforces the need to talk about emancipation, equality and sexual freedom for women. She is not the only one to bring the leading lady to life though: Jan Lauwers, who has taken part in the festival before in 2009, with a touching version of El cuarto de Isabella also starring Viviane De Muynck, directs a version starring renowned Chilean actress Gaby Hernández.
“With a minimum of song and dance, no need to overact and a magnetic onstage presence, (Viviane De Muynck) needs little more than a gesture, a look or simply silence to show us the very depths of her characters”.
Concept and directed by: Jan Lauwers and Viviane De Muynck | Cast: Gaby Hernández | A production by Needcompany | Coproduced by: the Teatro a Mil Foundation.
Viviane de Muyinck
Creator, director and star
The grande dame of European theater
This Belgian theater, movie and television director (1946) began a long-standing artistic collaboration with director Jan Lauwers and Needcompany in 1993, touring the world with them in starring roles. As well as her work as an actress, she has also directed theater plays and musicals. In 2018, she won the Ultima Award for General Cultural Merit from the Flemish government. She is considered the grande dame of European theater.
Jan Lauwers
Jan Lauwers, creator and director:
A multidisciplinary artist
Born in Antwerp in 1957, he is one of the most avant-garde artists on the European artistic scene. He founded Needcompany in 1986, a company that is involved in various aspects of the performing arts (theater, dance, performance and the visual arts) and is a pioneer of multilingual productions (Dutch, English, French, Spanish…), with an emphasis on post-dramatic texts. As well as his work in theater, he has had an important career in the visual arts and has since 2018 started working in opera.
NeedCompany
Needcompany, the company:
In search of new styles
Created in 1986 by Belgian artists Jan Lauwers and Grace Ellen Barkey and later joined by Maarten Sehgers, this multidisciplinary group’s work is mainly based on avant-garde scripts that are constantly pushing the boundaries of art and promoting its importance in society. Their work has been presented and lauded throughout Europe and the world.
- Viviane de Muynck’s performance is extraordinary. She has had the privilege of watching her character change since the first version she was in in 1999 and seeing how the words in her monologue, initially written in 1922, are even more relevant today. “When I started out performing Molly Bloom, I was much younger and I played a more emotional version of her, extremely influenced by my admiration for the author. Now I concentrate more on her strength, her independence, her humor, her wisdom. She isn’t submissive to the men she talks about. Her way of looking at the male world is shrewd, loving and funny. Is it sensual? Yes. She’s a free spirit who refuses to be chained up by male domination”, said the actress in an interview with El País, Spain.
- Its provocative script is like no other, not only because of its subject matter but also because of its style: it is written without almost any punctuation, making it a declamation hard to even take a breath and as direct as a bullet made of words. “It is clear that a woman wants to be embraced 20 times a day almost as a way of staying young it doesn’t matter by whom as long as she is in love with or loved by someone if the man you love isn’t always in there by God I was thinking that I would go to the dock myself on a dark night where no one knows me to screw a sailor recently arrived from the high seas who was desperate for it and who wouldn’t give a damn who I was and was only interested in getting it on in a doorway somewhere”.
Theater monologue: This is a speech by a single person, normally to express their thoughts out loud, although sometimes also to address another person or the audience. It comes from the Greek words monos (alone or solitary) and lógos (speech), and also serves, from the characters’ point of view, as a way of expressing feelings lyrically.
- Find out more about the work of Needcompany on their Vimeo Channel.
Facebook: facebook.com/needcompany
Instagram: @needcompanyarts
Web site, https://www.needcompany.org/en
COLABORA