Amsterdam, December 1970
I am in Amsterdam for the very first time. I own a passport!!!! I have flown in a plane for more than four hours! People are speaking a language that SOUNDS like English, only with words like “astyublieft”. That’s how it sounds to me. (I THINK that means, “you’re welcome”. It could mean, ”Come sleep with my horse.”)
I am a member of the International production of “Jacques Brel Is Alive…”
Two big old Dutch stars and my flame, George Ball, and me.
The man is a smallish Ian Holmsian actor named Henk VanUlsen. Very big in Dutch Theatre. And Dutch drinking institutions.
.The lady is the Liza Minelli of Holland, a long and gorgeous drink of water named Liselore Gerritson. Voice like Marlene and legs like Uma Thurman. I like her a lot. I have no idea what she thinks of me. I always feel Europeans look at me as if I were an untrained golden retriever. Cheerful and in need occasionally of a slight whacking with a rolled up newspaper
Our first day of rehearsal, I am BEYOND intimidated. Here are people who minimally speak five languages. You HAVE to if you live in Holland. I have barely learned New York. (Three years of high school Spanish is of no help here. Dutch is NOT a romance language.)
We sing through the score…watching each other with that cautious camaraderie of a first day rehearsal with people you have never met…from another COUNTRY! There is good coffee and interesting carbohydrates on the table.
The band is rocking. Comforting to know that Dutch musicians are just as crazy, and STONED, as New York musicians. The 70’s, remember? Hallucinogenics are almost legal over here in the land of impossibly long summer nights and impossible short and bitter winter days.
Liselore sings through all her numbers. She is the Star and is supposed to get all the great songs. After the break, she says to me “Here. YOU take all the beautiful songs. They don’t sound good in Dutch.” She’s right. They sound like a sore throat.
I am delighted to have songs like MARIEKE and NO LOVE YOU’RE NOT ALONE. She’s doing all the ballsy stuff.
THEN I find out SHE is going to sing CAROUSEL , the fastest and most insane number in the show, in DUTCH, and I have to sing back up for her, also in Dutch. And there are LOTS of words in the back up arrangement for this song. Most of the words sound like a person gargling razor blades. I seem to recall the words IN DER ZONE being repeated over and over. I am not IN DER ZONE at all. Learning Dutch phonetically is a pitiable experience. I sweat bullets over this one throughout the rehearsal process. All the Dutch folk keep throwing very strange looks at me. Are my vowel sounds inappropriate? Can I even make one over all the saliva produced by their consonants????
Miraculously, on opening night, I was tight, I was right, I was perfect! I got a hug from her and a large beer from Henk and realized I was now officially an international entertainer. Whew!
(AND I learned how to say “FAR OUT” in Dutch. It came in very handy throughout the city and the 70’s.)