Oleg Kerensl schreef 30 december 1982 in The Stage and Television Today
CABARET IS ALIVE
AND WELL IN NEW YORK
NEW YORK
The most ambitous of three one-
man shows seen recently in New
York was Herman van Veen : All of
him, which had a brief run on Broadway at the Ambassador Theatre.
It is really a cabaret act, of the European type. He sings like Jacques
Brel, mimes like Marcel Marceau,
does nonsense patter and pretends
to conduct like Danny Kaye, and for
good measure does some balletic
entrechats and climbs over a high
wire fence to hide in terror at the
end of the first act, and to escape
from the world at the end of the second.
New York critics thought his work
too derivative, and his manner
overdone, but the first-night audience adored him, forcing him to
return in his bathrobe, with wet
hair, to sing encores sitting on the
edge of the stage.
He was backed by three fine musicians and an elaborate sound and
lighting plot, in a production directed by Michel Lafaille. His songs,
most of which he writes himself, include protest about war and
unemployment as well as zany humorous
numbers. He is essentially a clown,
in the old versatile tradition, and
might have been more succesful in a
less formal atmosphere.
Arja Saijonmaa, a glamorous Finnish singer who has toured
extensively with Mikis Theodorakis, got
rave reviews for her New York
debut.
At the Village Gate she concentrated
on Theodorakis sung mostly in
English translations, with two of the
bestknown Brecht-Weill songs
("Surabaya Johnny" and "Mack The
Knife"), a Russian folksong and
some Finnish poens. She projected
her material with a strong, attractive, wide-ranging voice, and was
backed by a superb groupt of Swedish musicians and a virtuoso Greek
bouzouki player.
Comparisons with Marlene Dietrich
are a bit premature. If Dietrich had
sung about concentration camps,
we would have cried. With Miss
Saijonmaa, we were inpressed, possibly
shocked, but left somewhat cold.
Oleg Kerensl
The Stage and Television Today,
December 30, 1982 (Londen)
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