I had a really good weekend. We planned it summer last year, and Friday it was finally the day: Renaatje and me went to Javier Guzman, a Dutch cabarettist.
Please note that Dutch cabaret is quite different from the traditional cabaret. Dutch cabaret is performed usually by a single comedian, in about 90 to 120 minutes, on stage; usually a quite minimalistic stage (allthough there are exceptions like Bert Visscher). Cabaret usually has a central theme; the caberettist wants to learn his audience something; so, underneath the often harsh and confronting jokes, there’s a hidden meaning. The Dutch cabarettist usually ‘holds a mirror to its audience’, meaning he or she confronts his or her audience with their own weaknesses– more often then not they single out certain members of the audience, and keep making fun of those people during the show. Dutch cabaret is extremely popular, and venues are usually sold-out. Dutch cabarettists are highly popular, and are famous throughout the nation.
But anyway. I took two days off from work, so I could enjoy it all in a relaxed manner. Renate rents a room in Amsterdam, so I could stay the night. When I arrived at her place, I first watched the final few races in the 10000 metres speedskating (we won the gold and bronze!). Renaat isn’t into speedskating (heretic!), so she didn’t really understand my pure fanaticism.
When the speedskating was over, we took the subway to the restaurant, where we had a good dinner– not expensive, but a big plate. The theatre was next to the restaurant. The theatre itself was quite small, and the stage wasn’t actually a stage; it was not raised, and as such, Javier was on the same hieght as his audience. This created a very personal intimite atmosphere.
Javier Guzman amazed me. I could not have imagined how exceptionally good he was. Here and there he reminded me of Theo Maassen– another Dutch cabarettist with a huge, huge reputation. Allthough completely different, they had things in common too. And since I’m a huge fan of Maassen, I really enjoyed Guzman too. I’m not gonna say anything about his jokes or theme, because I don’t want to spoil it for others. His show, ‘Ton Zuur’, is probably gonna be on televison too when he’s done touring.
The show had no break, and lasted for roughly 2 hours. After it was over, we decided not to have a drink at the theatre’s bar, because it lacked any form of atmosphere (people who’ve been to De Griffioen in Uilenstede know what I’m talking about). We went to her place, bought some drinks and snacks first, and spent the night on her couch watching TV. As usual, Renate fell asleep almost instantly– even my loud laughters during Friends didn’t seem to bother her.
At around 01:30 we went to sleep.
We woke fairly early, at around 9, because Renate had to go to work in back in Big City Alkmaar the afternoon. We had a refreshing breakfast at Alkmaar Central Station. She went off to work, I hopped onto the 157 bus back to Warmenhuizen.
It was a very good start of the weekend, there’s nod enying that. It was also very comforting to see Renate relatively happy and relaxed– considering what had happened the week before. Thanks Renaat, for a great evening :).
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The rest of the saturday I did nothing. I watched the olympics all day and all evening. Sunday, Renate’s call woke me at 12:15– she was cycling, and was standing next to a sirectional sign saying Warmenhuizen. She was coming over. But I’m still in bed, I said with a whiny voice. I don’t care, just get out of it, she said.
When she left, I put on my skeelers (ignore the spam comments), and showed her out of town. I continued skeelering.
When I got home, I watched the men’s icehockey final at the Olympics. Entertaining.
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Great weekend.
