Guy Régis Jr.

Born in Port-au-Prince (Haiti) in April 1974, Guy Régis Jr. is a writer and stage director.

Many of his texts, comprising plays, novels and poetry, have been translated into several languages. He recently published Les Cinq Fois où j’ai vu mon père (The Five Times I Saw my Father – 2020, Gallimard) and the play Goebbels, juif et footballeur (Goebbels, Jew and Footballer – 2020), published by Les Solitaires Intempestifs, which issues his theatrical works. A translator into Creole, Guy Régis Jr. has also directed short experimental films. In 2001, he founded the NOUS Théâtre company, which went on to upend the codes of contempory theatre, in particular by creating Service Violence Série (2005), which was nothing less than a dramaturgical political act and the starting point for his future work. His polymorphous creations have been presented in France (Les Francophonies Festival in Limoges, the Avignon Festival’s IN, and a number of Scènes Nationales), in Haiti and on the international stage (including the United States, Colombia, Chili, Brazil, Belgium, Italy and Madagascar).

In addition to his creations, he is actively involved in developing the living arts in Haiti. Guy Régis Jr. is the Festival 4 Chemins’ current artistic director. A highlight of Port-au-Prince’s cultural life, this life-giving festival has become one of the French-speaking Caribbean’s foremost artistic events.

Guy Régis Jr. was made a Knight of Arts and Letters in 2017.

The writing project he is working on at Villa Medici examines the showcasing of images of hatred in our contemporary society. An attempt at exhausting all our human conflicts through creation and negotiation, as never before has an era made so public a display of the most hidden acts of family violence, along with those of open war between the world’s giants. We are constantly fed images of the nuclear threat, bombings, abductions, kidnappings, femicide, rapes, police violence, etc., as if our era wanted to make them more intimate. Guy Régis Jr. is looking to create a work that unites our everyday offences into a single whole and have them discussed in an Agora, a Forum, for a full day. “Quel dernier grand conflit pour satisfaire la haine entre les humains?” (What Final Great Conflict to Satiate the Hatred between Human Beings?) is a transdisciplinary work to whose composition he wishes to devote himself, a kind of plural dramaturgy where the audience is invited to continue the debate initiated by Einstein and Freud on the “inevitable” need for clashes and wars between human beings. Addressing/Dressing our wounds through solidarity.

 

Image : © Daniele Molajoli