Louis de Vriendt

DE VRIENDT, Louis. (18**-19**) Actor and manager. The son of a Flemish sculptor, De Vriendt began acting when he was eighteen and trained in the Flemish "volkstoneel" ("folk theatre") with Jan van Beers and Emiel Hullebroeck. He travelled widely also in eastern Europe, and apparently met his wife Mignon Sorel there. When they returned to Europe in 1914 they lived in Amsterdam and later moved to Belgium and formed the De Comoedia theatre group, presenting popular "transformation pieces" in which they portrayed a dozen or more characters. For example, when they performed Die Niksnuts ("Worthless Man") he and his wife enacted eight characters each, utilizing a strong mimetic style of characterization. In the 1922-23 season they joined Anton Verheyen on his tour of India and returned with him to Cape Town in 1927, to tour with their pieces, including Bietje ("Little"), De Brandstichter ("The Pyromaniac", De Gebroken Spiegel ("The Broken Mirror"), Niksnuts ("Worthless Man") and De Zonden van het Verleden ("The sins of the past" or Het Kind der Zonde = "Child of Sin "). Soon Verheyen breaks way, and they continued touring on their own. * In 1938 he directed Sepp'l, a Flemish operetta he had co-written with Emil Hullebroeck, for Volksteater. *

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