Le Bazar du Homard (Lobster Shop)

A man of the stage and a plastic artist, Flemish director Jan Lauwers set up his company in 1986 and developed a particular and innovative theatre style. His stage writing is finely shaped amid images, music, words and movement.
Jan Lauwers and his partners in creation in Needcompany make compositions out of their shows which ask questions about history and current affairs through private lives.
Their theatre dissects the meaning of things by creating their own ambiance and melodies. From repertory plays, all of them Shakespeare (notably Julius Caesar, 1990, Needcompany's Macbeth, 1996, Needcompany's King Lear, 2000) to their own inventions like The Snakesong Trilogy (1994-1998), Morning Song (1999), to solos specifically written for women actresses and dancers such as No Comment (2003), and then the Needlapb series of informal, festive rendezvous with the public where they presented their work-in-progress, and most recently the completed work, Isabella's Room-La chambre d'Isabella (2004), Needcompany has created more than twenty plays as well as other projects in film and video.
At the Avignon Festival, Jan Lauwers presented Isabella's Room - La Chambre d'Isabella in 2004 and Needlapb 10 in 2005.

What does lobster mean? This question that is at once absurd and crucial in Jan Lauwers' script sets the tone and the colour of this new piece from the Belgian director and writer. This work of fiction is staged as conversations among fascinating characters, whose backgrounds are as diverse as they are, at first glance, mysterious, with multi-faceted personalities and stories, which in some cases even leave us wondering if they really exist. This script played by the Needcompany's actor-dancer-singers leaves everyone the freedom to interpret and watch a story that goes from sad and ordinary to most outrageous via imagination and the memories of the events that are recounted.
Tired of life, Axel, who has just lost his son and whose wife has just left him, decides to celebrate one last day before he dies. He decides to celebrate his last ceremony by eating a lobster à l'Armoricaine in his favourite restaurant, which just happens to be called The Lobster Shop. But his plans go awry. The news, that of others and of the world, is explosive, and sets off a chain of untimely accidents. The incidents that beset the character and the fragmentation of the scenes and the situations are used by Jan Lauwers and his crew to make this sombre and joyful tale into a ‘pointillist' portrait of an era in revolt where everyone struggles to define themselves. It's the 21st century.
Irène Filiberti

texte, mise en scène : Jan Lauwers
avec : Hans Petter Dahl, Grace Ellen Barkey, Tijen Lawton, Anneke Bonnema, Benoît Gob, Inge Van Bruystegem, Julien Faure, Maarten Seghers
musique : Hans Petter Dahl, Maarten Seghers
scénographie : Jan Lauwers
costumes : Lot Lemm
éclairages : Lieven De Meyere, Jan Lauwers
concept son : Dré Schneider
directeur de production : Luc Galle
traduction anglaise : Gregory Ball
traduction française : Monique Nagielkopf

Production : Needcompany
coproduction : Festival d'Avignon, Théâtre de la Ville-Paris, Théâtre Garonne (Toulouse), PACT Zollverein (Essen), Cankarjev Dom (Ljubljana), La Rose des Vents (Scène nationale de Villeneuve-d'Ascq), Automne en Normandie, La Filature-Scène nationale de Mulhouse, Kaaitheater (Bruxelles), deSingel (Anvers)
avec la collaboration de : la Commission communautaire flamande de la Région de Bruxelles-Capitale
avec le soutien : du programme Culture 2000 de l'Union européenne et des autorités flamandes texte publié par: les éditions Actes Sud-Papiers
Le Festival d'Avignon reçoit le soutien de l'Adami pour la production