It was 1958. Actress Ingeborg Elzevier obtained her diploma at the Amsterdam Theater School at the age of 22. On 31 May she gave a “public demonstration of dramatic art” in the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg, that was common at the time. In addition to her diploma, she also won the Top Naeff prize, an incentive prize for promising students. Her presentation was struck by unprecedented versatility: she played scenes Othello,, ” Yerma from Federico García Lorca and Intimacy Van Noel Coward.
This versatility, ranging from tragedy to sex sketch, has remained characteristic of her impressive theater career. In the same year, 1958, she debuted at Toneelgroep Theater from Arnhem in Orpheus descends from Tennessee Williams. After this grandiose start, Ingeborg Elzevier was virtually on stage until 2015. She was born in Amsterdam on February 20, 1935 and followed the Montessorilyceum. This week she died at the age of 89 in her hometown of Amsterdam, theater producer Stuurmanskunst announced on Thursday.
One of her last roles was in La Paloma (2014) from Gerardjan Rijnders, together with Kitty Courbois and Sigrid Koetse. In this humorous reunion, the three Grande Ladies of the Dutch Toneel met once more. In 2017, Elzevier received the permanent applause prize in the Toneel, Television and Film category for its “dedicated, honest and pure play,” the jury said. “The handsome Van Ingeborg Elzevier is that she is always able to find interesting and often young, new opponents and also bind new audiences to her.”
Ingeborg Elzevier has been associated with almost all interesting Dutch groups since her first performance, including the Dutch Comedie, Haagse Comedie, Ensemble, Toneelgroep Centrum, Toneelgroep Amsterdam and finally at Theaterbureau Hummelinck Stuurman. Elzevier was unmistakably a comédienne that always managed to find the perfect balance between challenging play and played innocence. Her genre was the light -tinted, sometimes spicy comedy. But also in large, more dramatic roles, she excelled, as in A kind of Alaska (1982) from Harold Pinter, Chimmer (1986) Van Bernlef, Quartet (1987) from Heiner Müller and in the progressive assembly performance Bakelite (1987) Van Gerardjan Rijnders, the last two by Toneelgroep Amsterdam.
‘Rusk with mice’
From the start she performed for television and in film. With her comic TV role in Rusk (KRO, 1972-1973) gained great fame. She also played guest roles in Baantjer,, ” Medical Center West and the comedy series Mount. In the much watched television series The Silent Power (1974) she could be seen as the bored wife of Doctor Van Doorn.
From her father, Elzevier was not allowed to go to the Amsterdam Theater School, who had a “bad fame” in the early 1950s, like the whole stage, according to the young, upcoming actress in a beautiful and especially self -conscious interview from 1958, the year of graduation. According to her father, theater was a “whore occupation.” She had gone to the theater and then “the quarrels arrived. I immediately left the house because you will disrupt it, because you are going to work in a completely different atmosphere, the right course of things.”
She has retained that proud of her profession and her tempered self -awareness. Her great interest in the theater was added. Up to old age she always gave premieres in the Stadsschouwburg or Delamar Theater Acte De presence. In 1994 she played in the musical comedy The singer’s wife from Paul Haenen. For the first time she had to sing in a microphone.
“I like changes,” she said in an interview at the time NRC. “For example, I have been moved at least 25 times. That was sometimes because of divorces, but also because I am bored when I’m somewhere for a while. In my work I want to do as many things as possible that I have never done before.”
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Read also: The review in 2014 of ‘La Paloma’, in which Ingeborg Elzevier shone together with Sigrid Koetse and Kitty Courbois
After her fixed commitment to the repertoire signs, she opted for free productions in the early 1990s. She thought that decision has enriched her life. From that moment she played performances in which she didn’t have to improvise or tell stories about her own life, which then served as a material for her game.
In the beginning of Elzeviers career, the comedies of Molière and Shakespeare were just about the only light repertoire that was not forbidden. The comedy was looked down. And it was precisely that genre for which Elzevier talent had. Undoubtedly this had to do with construction, according to the actress himself, “but even more with a sense of humor. Without a sense of humor you can’t play comic roles.”
The fact that she was always called a “typical comedy actress” did not bother her. It was precisely here that she wanted to excel. At the time she was affiliated with the Hague Comedie, between 1964 and 1969, she performed with the greats of the stage, including Ko van Dijk, Ida Wasserman and Paul Steenbergen, the brother of her then husband actor Lou Steenbergen.
The repertoire of those years showed that the Hague company, in addition to serious pieces by GB Shaw and Dylan Thomas, also brought theater with lighter test, such as work by Friedrich Dürrenmatt and John Osborne. Elzevier found her own voice and style in this.