Dirk Roofthooft

Dirk Roofthooft (°1959) graduated from Studio Herman Teirlinck in 1981. Since then, he has worked with theatre directors, choreographers and musicians including Jan Fabre, Jan Lauwers/Needcompany, Luk Perceval, Ivo van Hove, Theu Boermans, Jan Ritsema, Josse De Pauw, Peter Vermeersch, Wim Vandekeybus, Ron Vawter (The Wooster Group), Zita Swoon, The London Symphonietta, jazz icon Henry Threadgill (opening Salsburger Festspiele 1998) and opera director Peter Sellars.

With Guy Cassiers he made Kaspar (Peter Handke) and Tristan (Klaus Mann) in the beginning of 1980, Het liegen in ontbinding (Decomposing lies - 1993) and Bezonken rood (Sunken Red - 2004), which is still on tour in different languages. In 2006 - 2007 he played the leading part in Guy Cassiers' Mefisto for ever, for which he was awarded the Louis d'Or. In Guy Cassiers' opera House of the Sleeping Beauties (2009), Roofthooft played the part of old mister Eguchi.

Besides his work for the theatre, Dirk Roofthooft is a successful film actor. He is known mostly for his parts in the series Terug naar Oosterdonk (Back to Oosterdonk) and Het verdriet van België (The Sorrow of Belgium - 1995), a series by Claude Goretta based on Hugo Claus' novel. He played in films by Dominique Deruddere (Hombres Complicados and Hochzeitfeier), Patrice Toye (Rosie) and Pleure pas, Germaine by Alain de Halleux. For this part, he received his second Joseph Plateau Prize for Best Actor. He played in Olivetti 82, in Somberman’s Actie (Remco Campert) by Casper Verbrugge, in Anyway the wind blows, a film by Tom Barman (dEUS) and in Erik Van Looy's The Alzheimer Case, Loft and The Premier. For his part in Somberman’s Actie he received the award for Best Actor of the Year in Italy (Pescara). His most recent parts were in the tv-series De Ronde  (The Tour - 2011) and in Clan (2012), for which he was awarded Best Actor at the Night of the Flemish Television Stars 2013. He played also in Zuidflank (2014), Chaussée d’amour (2016), The infiltrator(2018) and The gang of Jan De Lichte (2020).

In de summer of 2006, Dirk Roofthooft and Jan Fabre were guests of honour at the Theatre Festival of Avignon. At the Festival, Roofthooft performed Jan Fabre's plays The Emperor of Loss, The King of Plagiarism and Je suis sang. Jan Fabre's Servant of Beauty, another monologue for Dirk Roofthooft, premiered in March 2010. In the autumn of 2010, Dirk Roofthooft and composer and jazz musician Kris Defoort created The Brodsky Concerts, based on texts by Joseph Brodsky. He also had a part in The Art of Entertainment, by author and director Jan Lauwers (Needcompany, 2011). And he created with Coline Struyf the monoloque Lettre à D. (2015) for Théâtre National, the year wherein he also with Claron McFadden and David Kweksilber Big Band played in the musictheaterproduction Saul directed by Dick Hauser. In 2018 he played in King Lear of Toneelgroep Maastricht, directed by Servé Hermans.

Dirk Roofthooft was in RUHE (2008, Muziektheater Transparant), directed by Josse De Pauw. In March 2013, he and Diederick De Cock made The Cutter-off of Water, based on the short story by Marguerite Duras. He played in four other productions for Muziektheater Transparant: Walcott Songs, Enoch Arden, Escorial, Josse De Pauw's adaptation of the one-act play by Michel de Ghelderode (May 2013) and Van den Vos, an opera based on the epic fable Reynard directed by FC Bergman (December 2013). In 2019, together with visual artist Hans Op De Beeck, Blindman Kwartet and Claron McFadden, he created for Muziektheater Transparant The valley, an apocalypse.

 That same year he made Memento Mori with Els Dietvorst and Aurelie Di Marino for the Kaaitheater.

Dirk Roofthooft has won several film and theatre awards in Belgium as well as abroad. He plays in Dutch, French, English, Spanish and German.

Photo: Stefan Van Fleteren