Clive Barnes schreef 9 december in de NEW YORK POST
New dutch import:
Less would be more
THE streets of Amsterdam are made of water,
the bicycles are oiled
with rain. You sit at cafe
tables covered with carpets and drink an aromatic, pungent potion
they think is gin.
Amsterdam, which I
love, is an acquired
taste. So, I imagine, is
Herman Van Veen, who
opened his one-man
show with musicians at
the Ambassador Theater
last night. And Van Veen
was not even born in
Amsterdam. He loudhails from Utrecht.
His show is called Herman Van Veen; All of
Him. All of him might be
too much, and at times it
is too little. He is very
Dutch. With his seawater eyes, angular
bones and martyr-face
of ribald protest, he even
looks like a minor
character from a whole
gallery of Dutch and
Flemish old masters.
He is a comedian and
musician, singer and
violinist. He mimes. He
rides a bicycle. When at
a loss for a grimace he
climbs a wall. He starts
out as a Dutch Rip Taylor - showering his
audience with Indonesian rice - and ends,
or nearly ends, as a
French Victor Borge.
He reminds you of
others in other places at
other times. Jacques
Brel, of course. Van Veen
is rather less civilized,
but if you are Flemish
you have to be civilized,
while if you are Dutch
you can stay Dutch.
He has something in
common with Harry
Chapin. His songs tell ordinary stories
of ordinary people - the wasted
housewife, or the male
prostitute on the street
corner waiting to service
the next gay Mercedes
cruising by.
But Chapin had more
point. Van Veen has
more substance than
focus. He gets lost in his
own rhetoric. His points
- losing something in
translation, perhaps? -
are all too simplistic. His
messages run riot with
mottoes.
When he tells us - at
length - that "Cowards
live because they're
clever, heroes die, but
live forever" you wonder
what he has done to his
mind, or at least where
he has left it.
This is the strangeness
of Van Veen - a cult figure in Ho11and and popular throughout Europe.
He is prankishly inconsistent. He can be mawkishly sentimental one
minute, or sickeningly
manipulative, then suddenly his face will wipe
off that moment and he
will become a caged,
ferocious tiger.
The humor is schoolboyish and physical.
With his blond, balding
hair, framing a cherubically wicked face, he can
flail around the stage
like a Peter Sellers
trying to imitate a
Jacques Tati. He is nothing if not subtly obvious,
except when he is obviously subtle. Yet
his timing is immaculate. He is
a remarkable, if singular, musician, and is
backed up by a superb
band. He is a violinist
and pianist, and he has a
particular genius for
making percussive
music out of, say, the
skin of a double bassa, or
the frame of a piano. He
gets grotesque fun from
a spastic tap dance, or
singing gibberish scat.
He can be childlike -
in doing comic walks
across the stage, for instance, - or miming
a traffic catastrophe hits audience is expected to find
amusing, as opposed to
an atomic holocaust.
He can be sophisticated. Witness his terrific
virtuosity in playing the
piano with his backside
while producing a credible parody of
Stravinsky's Les Noces.
For Broadway he
needs far less freedom
than he allows himself
at present. Van Veen
wanders all over the lot,
cheerfu11y believing that
his very presence is the
justification of entertainment. It isn't. There
are long loguers - not
helped by his nervi1y
smug self-assurance.
Less of Van Veen would
be more - but when he is
good he can be tremendous. His director
and collaborator, Michael Lafallle, needs a firmer
hand. It would give us a
stronger show.
Clive Barnes
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