Actress Sigrid Koetse: a classic diva that excelled in tragedies, and later embraced Modern Toneel

It is one of the strongest theater images from the career of Sigrid Koetse, connected to the scene from the age of twenty: she plays in the crushing mounting tank Bakelite (1987) from Gerardjan Rijnders at Toneelgroep Amsterdam. Around her, a storm of twelve wild women in a crazy house rushes who dance, sing, call, move in a kind plastic society. Koetse, also known as La Koetse, sits unmoved on a bar, dressed in white costume with a white hat. That hat suits her: she had a love love.

The roots of Sigrid Koetse lie with the Dutch Comedie, Haagsche Comedie and the Public Theater. She was an actress with style and allure, trained by the greats of the time, Guus Oster, Ko van Dijk, Guus Hermus and Han Bentz van den Berg. She always played in the repertoire of Chekhov, Shakespeare and Vondel. But by Bakelite La Koetse suddenly had to improvise. She had sleepless nights. Eventually the role and the performance gave her a liberation from the ‘repertoire approval’. She was distinguished with the highest crown, Theo d’Or.

Sigrid Koetse is an actress with at least two remarkable careers: the one in the old -fashioned star theater and in the contemporary repertoire. She died in her hometown of Amsterdam, at the age of 89 years.

Sigrid Koetse was born on September 6, 1935 in Haarlem as the daughter of a Groningen father and a Finnish mother. After the HBS she attended the theater school in Amsterdam, where she took final exams in 1955. She made her debut on 8 October of that year at the Dutch Comedy with the role of Amparo in Mariana PinedoA play by the Spanish writer García Lorca with which he protest against absolutism in the nineteenth century. Koetse was honored with the Top Naeff prize, a prize for promising new theater talent.

Koetse was married to actor and director Jan Retèl. Their daughter Sjoera Retèl is also an actress; She is the half -sister of actor René Retèl.

World repertoire

Koetse was in the same class for two years as Ramses Shaffy for two years. She says about this time “the most beautiful memories of her life.” They often went to the movies together and played that film, they were the main characters themselves.

After her debut, Koetse played great roles from the world repertoire as Goneril in the Dutch comedy King LearWitch and Hofdame of Lady Macbeth in Macbethin pieces by Chekhov and Brecht. She was Ophelia in HamletBadeloch in Gray Brecht van Aemstel. She was affiliated with both the Dutch and Haagsche Comedie, the Public Theater and Toneelgroep Amsterdam. From the outset, since television season 1954-1955, she alternated theater with film and television, especially after the birth of her two children. In the fifties and sixties she was shown annually in her success role Badeloch in Vondels Gijsbrecht van Aemstel. She played roles in various genres, including the title role in the farce The Wonderful Shoe Lapperswoman (1959), also from Lorca and the thriller You speak with your murderer (1960) from Frederick Knott. In this, Koetse plays a wife who goes out with her former lover; In the meantime, her husband is planning a horrible plan. She could also be seen in plays such as Three Sisters (1979) and Mourning fits electricity (1980).

Her share in feature films and television series is impressive, including Junction (1989), Werther Nieland (1991), Flodder (1998) and Mount (2003). Koetse was a real dramatic actress who excelled in tragedies.

When she retired at Toneelgroep Amsterdam at the age of 65, Rijnders wrote the play especially for her Bernhardinspired by the work of the Austrian playwright Thomas Bernhard. In Bernhard Koetse could show her beautiful and talent, her glory and tragedy. This written tribute to Koetse was impressive and unique in stage history: “I played them all,” says Koetse in Bernhard. “Masja/ both masjas/ olga/ arkadina/ Preferably/ I played/ queens/ tragic queens/ with tragic children/ I played them all/ Medea/ Andromache/ Hecuba/ Maria Stuart/ Elisabeth.” Anyone who heard her speak, with those worn, heavy voice, crystal clear sounding throughout the theater, don’t forget that.

Strikingly nuanced

Yet was Bernhard Not her first monologue: in the 1990s she played with great success Callasa piece by the French writer Jean-Yves Picq about the personal life of the famous Operadiva. Koetse and Callas: It was a beautiful reflection.

Although Koetse has all experienced the radical stage innovations closely, she was strikingly nuanced about, for example, Tomato of 1969. After she was once asked how she had endured those storms of renewal, the Grande Dame of the Dutch Toneel noticed very realistically: “We noticed:” We Would now turn us to death in performances from the fifties. Intentional style changes are especially visible to the outside world, not for the players. I can’t say from one moment to the other, “From now on I am an innovative person?” For actors, a style is much less quickly past than the spectators think. For me, not so much has changed in all this time. “

However, she has always resisted ‘lived -in’ in the scene, which was at some point. The claus ‘being or not …’ Hamlet For example, playing carelessly, with a undertone of ‘we know that now’, was certainly not spent on Koetse, as she emphasized in this newspaper in a conversation from 2005: “Nowadays it is soon: just do it. But it’s not just! It is theater and theater has enlarged! ”

After her retirement, Koetse continued to play as a freelance actress. In 2014 she was in together with Kitty Courbois and Ingeborg Elzevier The comedy La Paloma from Bert Edelenbos. All three had passed the seventy far. The actresses each symbolize a playing style; Courbois as the modern player. Elzevier de Comédienne and Koetse the undisputed diva. The three women in the play are sisters of each other, and come together in a summer house. The entrance to Koetse was unforgettable, at the time in the Leidse Schouwburg. She lives in Greece and wears a radiant white fur mantle. The real reason for her visit to the Netherlands is one second opinion. What this involves she only gives price later, at the end, when the shock has struck the three ladies. Even at Koetse, but her resistance is unbroken.

In this role, Koetse united her entire career: that of chic lady at the Dutch and Haagsche Comedie, followed by her great but harder roles at Toneelgroep Amsterdam. Just like in Bernhard connects them La Paloma “The comedy with a touch of tragedy,” in her own words. That is aptly said, especially that ‘touch’.

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