“Crying, crying, crying? Germans dig holes.” So said the father of comedian Stefan Hendrikx (32) in response to his son’s encouragement that he is allowed to cry. Hendrikx explains Who’s the man how he saw his father struggling with his emotions after the dog’s death. He refused to cry “because of something that he could not go to the toilet on his own.” Hendrikx plays this struggle comically.
Hendrikx was disappointed by his father’s inability to express his emotions, but later had to admit that he himself was unable to cry for most of his life. Hendrikx’s debut performance, winner of the jury prize of the Leids Cabaret Festival in 2022, is about the battle between desires and expectations. These can get in each other’s way, for example when you think that a ‘real man’ should keep his feelings to himself. In a stimulating performance, Hendrikx shows that breaking free from certain gender roles is not easy at all.
In Who’s the man it is not so much about Hendrikx’s opinion, but the struggle between thinking and doing is central. For example, he thinks it is old-fashioned that men should pay the bill on a date, or he thinks that exuberant dancing is not reserved for women, but acting on this often turns out to be something completely different. Hendrikx depicts this conflict in fast moving scenes and a number of comic songs.
Hendrikx is a good and fun actor, which ensures that a scene at a bachelor party quickly becomes a comedy act. With verve he plays a stripper, a bride-to-be who gets a lap dance and the friends who stand in a circle around him at the same time. Especially in events where clichés rule, it is quite difficult to resist peer pressure and expectations, as Hendrikx effectively demonstrates.
To show that it is nonsense that former earthlings would have had something like ‘masculinity’ in abundance, Hendrikx also delves into history. An anecdote about the cumbersome communication of Jesus Christ is a bit on the lame side. The song is very funny about a Viking who initially acts according to what he thinks a Viking should do, but later retraces his steps.
A recurring figure in Hendrikx’s stories is a certain Uncle Johan, who, unlike Hendrikx, does have clear ideas about what a man should be. He likes meat, drills, carries two crates of beer while pretending it isn’t heavy and wins a fight against a swan. It is obviously stupid, but Hendrikx does not care when his uncle claims that he would not win a fight with a swan. Several times Hendrikx falls into funny fantasies in which he shows how he could really defeat one, two, and yes, three swans.
The scenes with the swans are a good find. It makes it clear how stupid and childish certain gender roles are, but at the same time how persistent the fight against them is. In this way, Hendrikx convincingly exposes a universally recognizable conflict in his first cabaret performance. It makes Who’s the man into a particularly successful debut.
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