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Re-Thinking Dutch Cabaret: the Conservative Implications of Humour in the Dutch Cabaret Tradition

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Re-Thinking Dutch Cabaret: the Conservative Implications of Humour in the Dutch Cabaret Tradition Re-Thinking Dutch Cabaret: The Conservative Implications of Humour in the Dutch Cabaret Tradition MA Thesis Kunstwetenschappen / Art Studies University of Amsterdam Dick Zijp (5844029) Supervisors: Prof. dr. Maaike Bleeker and Dr. Bram van Oostveldt December 2014 1 Table of Contents Introduction 4 Questioning Dutch cabaret 5 Procedure 6 Chapter 1: The Critical Reputation of Dutch Cabaret 9 Early history: Wim Ibo 9 The 1990s: engagement vs. authenticity 13 Jacques Klöters 14 Hilde Scholten 17 Van den Hanenberg and Verhallen 19 The 2000s/2010s: new forms of engagement 21 Robbert van Heuven 22 VSCD Cabaret Prizes 23 The question of humour 24 Example #1: Lurelei - Arme ouwe (1966) 25 Example #2: Youp van 't Hek - Buckler (1989) 27 Example #3: Theo Maassen - Crucifix (2005) 29 Chapter 2: The Conservative Implications of Humour 32 Billig and humour studies 32 Billig and classical theory 34 Billig and Bergson 36 Billig and Freud 40 Billig and conservative humour 42 From function to strategies 44 Chapter 3: Re-Thinking Dutch Cabaret: Micha Wertheim's Deconstruction 46 of the Dutch Cabaret Tradition A joke about joking 47 Wertheim steps out of his role, or doesn't he? 51 Dissecting visuality 52 The authentic comedian 55 2 Ridiculing Facebook 57 Re-thinking Dutch cabaret 59 Conclusion 63 Looking back: conservative implications 63 Looking forward: new critical possibilities 64 Works Cited 66 3 Introduction In December 2010, I attended a performance by the Dutch comedian Micha Wertheim, titled Micha Wertheim voor de zoveelste keer (Micha Wertheim for the Umpteenth Time).1 I was already familiar with Wertheim's work at the time, and I knew that he was an experimental comedian who often played with the expectations of the spectator and addressed his audiences in unexpected ways. Yet this performance initially seemed to be more conventional in structure than Wertheim's earlier performances: Wertheim, standing behind a microphone on an almost empty stage, presented us with a succession of jokes, grouped around a series of personal stories and observations. However, after some forty minutes, something unusual happened. In the middle of a personal commentary upon Facebook, Wertheim suddenly took one step back from the microphone. At this moment, a recording of Wertheim's voice came in, and continued the story that Wertheim was telling live. Wertheim, who had been standing behind the microphone from the beginning of the performance, now left the microphone, took a chair and sat down at the front of the stage to listen to the voice-over. After a while, he unplugged the cord of the microphone. The voice-over immediately stopped. Next, Wertheim started to reflect upon the Facebook commentary. He told us that this seemingly personal commentary upon Facebook did not reflect his personal opinion, but was actually made up. It was 'staged'. Furthermore, Wertheim revealed that he was not making fun of Facebook because he found it important to make a critical statement about it. Rather, as he put it, I did it because it "worked", because I wanted you to believe me to be truly "angry" about this. Watching Wertheim's performance was an uncomfortable experience. I felt a little bit unsettled, troubled, when Wertheim revealed this seemingly authentic moment of self- disclosure to be 'just an act'. I began to wonder where this discomfort and this confusion came from. To understand this, it seems first of all important to recognize that Wertheim unsettles common expectations about authenticity. Cabaret performers and stand-up comedians are generally expected to be themselves on stage, to be 'authentic' (Klöters, "Even samenvatten", 37). When comedians are sometimes not 'themselves', they normally communicate to the audience that they are 'playing a role' by using props, theatrical costume, or adopting a silly voice. In line with this, comedians are expected to be 'sincere', to present an audience with personal stories and opinions (Heuven 82). Wertheim refuses to perform according to these 1 Micha Wertheim voor de zoveelste keer, De Kleine Komedie, Amsterdam, 12 Dec. 2010. For the detailed analysis of Wertheim's performance conducted in Chapter 3 of this thesis, I have made use of the television registration of this performance: Wertheim, Micha. "Micha Wertheim voor de zoveelste keer." Npo.nl. Web. 19 Nov. 2014. 4 conventions of authenticity. He does initially not communicate to the audience that his commentary upon Facebook is 'just' an act. Rather than adopting a silly voice to comment upon Facebook, and then switching back to his 'own' voice, Wertheim keeps speaking within the same voice, while also indicating a change by 'doubling' his voice and stepping out of the story to reflect upon it, thereby confusing the clear-cut distinction between self and role and confusing our expectations of the authenticity of the comedian. By playing with and making us aware of these conventions of authenticity, Wertheim also confronts us as spectators with general assumptions about what counts as 'critical' cabaret, and points us to the fact that strategies of authenticity can be used to mask the conservative implications of what seems to be a very critical use of humour. Namely, Wertheim reveals to the audience that he did not make fun of Facebook because he wanted to make a personal statement about it, but rather because he knew that the audience would recognize 'Facebook' as a heavily debated topic worthy of critique: for although Facebook is indeed a very popular medium, it has also stirred critical debate. As Wertheim goes on to demonstrate, precisely by reiterating this familiar critique of Facebook, he was able to make it seem as if he was truly angry about it.2 However, reiterating a very familiar critique is not very challenging; doing so, one merely confirms what most people think, and this is actually a very conservative thing to do. Yet, as Wertheim demonstrates, precisely because it is a cliché recognized by many people, the comedian ridiculing Facebook is perceived by the audience as 'authentic', as 'truly' angry and critical. In this thesis, I set out to theorize these conservative implications of humour explored by Wertheim in his performance, as well as the strategies of authenticity used by comedians to mask these conservative implications of humour. Questioning Dutch cabaret By pointing to the role of strategies of authenticity in masking the conservative implications of humour, Wertheim raises urgent questions about Dutch cabaret as a cultural tradition. To make this point clear, I will first provide some background information about the Dutch cabaret tradition. In the Dutch context, the term 'cabaret' refers to a very popular form of theatrical comedy. It has thus nothing to do with the cheap nightclub entertainment that the term 'cabaret' refers to in the Anglo-American context. Rather, Dutch cabaret is a form of comedy that can be traced back to the European cabaret movement of the late nineteenth and 2 Wertheim's Facebook story presents a critique of the idea of digital friendship. People on Facebook, says Wertheim/the voice-over, may think of themselves as very 'social' and 'connected', but they are actually very lonely. They believe they have made 'real' friends, but actually they are sitting all alone behind their computer screens. 5 early twentieth century. In his classical historical overview work on Dutch cabaret, Wim Ibo has demonstrated that Dutch cabaret can ultimately be traced back to the late nineteenth- century French cabaret-artistiques, the artistic cafés in which French artists, poets and writers experimented with a new form of satirical comedy (see Ibo, Chap. 1). Although Dutch cabaret was initially very strongly influenced by the French as well as by the German cabaret tradition, in the course of the twentieth century it developed into a distinct form of comedy which is often conceived as 'typically Dutch' (Hanenberg and Verhallen 10). Today, the typical cabaret performance is a solo performance of a comedian who presents (semi- )personal stories and observations interspersed with jokes, often combined with social and political commentary. This element of social and political criticism is especially important. Dutch cabaret has a strong reputation as a critical and progressive form of comedy. In his standard work about cabaret, Ibo has typified cabaret as "protest against conventions, traditions, and dogmas" (21).3 Furthermore, many authors have pointed to the important role of engagement in the Dutch cabaret tradition (Scholten). Moreover, it has often been suggested that the political and social criticism provided by comedians has a personal flavour: comedians are 'authentic', they stand on stage 'as themselves', and they directly address the audience to tell about their personal problems and struggles with the world around them. In the 1990s, the concept of 'personal engagement' has been coined to emphasize this strong relationship between social and political criticism and the personal life of the comedian (Scholten 12). It is against this background that Wertheim's remarks about the conservative implications of humour, and the role of authenticity in obscuring these implications, must be understood. Procedure In this thesis, I will use Wertheim's performance as my theoretical object4 to re-think a Dutch cabaret tradition that is generally perceived as critical and progressive, and to re-direct attention to the more troubling political implications of humour within this tradition. My main aim is to theorize the conservative implications of humour within Dutch cabaret and thereby to problematize a dominant and rather one-sided understanding of cabaret as critical and progressive. 3 My translation. Ibo argues that cabaret always has the form of a "protest" and adds to this: "het stelt [...] betrekkelijkheid tegenover conventies, tradities en dogma's". 4 I take the notion of theoretical object from Maaike Bleeker (Visuality 8). With this notion, Bleeker argues for an approach in which the reflexive nature of cultural objects is taken seriously, and in which these objects are not used as mere illustrations of theory.
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