Two weeks after his coffin sat on the stage of the Bourla theatre, Josse De Pauw got up on the same stage and performed De Versie Claus (The Claus Version).

De Pauw is an actor well known at home and abroad for his long stage career and award-winning roles in Flemish movies like Wait Until Spring, Bandini, Iedereen Beroemd (Everybody Famous!) and Een Ander Zijn Geluk (Someone Else’s Happiness). He had been working with scriptwriter Mark Schaevers for more than a year on adapting Schaevers’ own book Groepsportret (Group Portrait) – extracts from interviews Claus has given over a 50-year career – to the stage.

Claus was famous for lying to journalists – changing stories about his life with each new interview. It maddened some, delighted others. And eventually made a brilliant monologue, which De Pauw is now premiering in French, before going on tour in Flanders with the original Dutch version.

Claus gave permission for De Versie Claus, but he never saw the final work. “He would have been sitting in the front row,” says De Pauw today. “But he wasn’t. He decided to go away.”

Flanders Today: What did you see in the book Groepsportrait that you thought would make good theatre?

Josse De Pauw: Mark Schaevers is a journalist, and he followed Hugo Claus for a long time. He finally asked him if he could write a book based on the interviews Claus had given from the 1960s to the present day. Because Claus did not always tell the truth. He didn’t like the truth very much. He like stories, and even lies. It was like a game to him.

Mark’s book dated all Claus’ answers. So you can see how Claus changed his answers through the years. Mark told me that he thought there was a monologue in there that could give a certain version of Hugo Claus. We asked Claus if he would give his blessing to the project, and he did – to my surprise.

Why were you surprised? After all, he was your friend.

Claus likes a particular kind of theatre, and it’s not really the kind of theatre that I do. His theatre is Baroque, with costumes and big gestures and a lot of people on stage. Monologue is not his kind of theatre. When we approached him, he said: “So, you want to plunder me? Okay, plunder me.”

Claus used to lie to people who interviewed him. As a journalist, I might be very frustrated if my subject is lying to me.

The best interviews with Claus were done by the people who weren’t bothered by it, by those who played the game. Some didn’t like it; they said it was too much of a mystery. But he did so many interviews, and he became such a good poseur that he became like an open book. By telling stories and not telling the truth, by telling it in his way, he told you something maybe more truthful about himself. And besides, what he says is always interesting. He was generous in answering questions because he talked a lot. It’s not like he was a difficult interview. No, he was giving it all and in beautiful language. Journalists only had to copy his words, and they were done. He did it all for them.

The only other character in this play is the interviewer of Claus, who is played by a dwarf. Why?

Claus was known for criticising journalists. He was playing a role; he wasn’t mean. But it was part of his game. On stage, Claus can tower over the interviewer, really look down on him. But when he takes a distance and he’s talking more to the audience, then the other actor is still there and watching him, and he becomes more like an audience judging Claus, like how people could look at him.

I remember when I was 16 and started to read Claus. My father was a great reader, but Claus scared him. To my father, that was not the image of a writer – a writer had a neat beard and a pipe and was serious and talked in a low voice. And Claus was a kind of Mick Jagger. With this afghan thing and with sunglasses and laying around in his chair. Very arrogant. At that time in Flanders, it was shocking. But for us, 16 or 17 years old, it was great, of course.

You don’t really imitate Claus in the performance so much as just use his words.

I’m not that kind of actor. I don’t transform physically or in attitude. I felt that the most special thing was that it’s his words, it’s his sentences, it’s the way he said it, and I take it in my mouth now. I’m speaking him. That is very special.

I put sunglasses on, that’s all. For the rest, I’m very much Josse De Pauw onstage. I can do that because I agree with almost everything he says. I have the same sympathy for lies as a technique of survival. That’s what he said: the world can be saved by lies, but the lies cannot be believed or otherwise they’re not worth anything. But if it’s a way of taking lies and making a life out of them, then yes. I’m an actor, I do theatre, it’s the same system. You have an agreement with the audience. We’re going to lie up here about something, and, in that way, we’re going to find the truth.

Did the piece change for you after Hugo died?

All of a sudden, the play was very worthwhile – to let people hear what he said, how he thought about his life. I wanted him in the front row, I wanted to do this performance for him. But still, there was something very right about it. The emphasis of certain lines changed, of course, like what he says about dying. But it fit the situation very much. He always said he would decide when he died. And he did. Which we all know must take some courage.

Why are you doing a French version? Why not just surtitles?

I was born in Belgium; I’ve lived all my life in both languages. I like the idea of doing a play in both languages. Also, there are other kinds of plays that are easier to surtitle because there are other things happening on stage. Here it would be hard. You’d have to read the whole time.

If you had to describe Hugo Claus in a few words, what would you say?

Great poet. Very charming. Stubborn in a good way. Very un-Flemish.

What does “un-Flemish” mean?

Flemish people like very much when you are that or that. Claus didn’t fit into any category. And if he felt that he was fitting in something, he would fight to get out of it. He made his own life, his own decisions.