With sound. Honours for Marga Klompé; Action Tomato finally buried during commemoration.

The myth just had to end. Nan van Houte, former director of Amsterdam's small theatre Frascati, has buried Action Tomato. Speaking at Requiem for Tomato, on 4 November 2019, she made it crystal clear that this legendary event has been given too big a leash by our theatre historians. When a few tomatoes were thrown at the long languishing stage of the Dutch Comedy in 1969, it was at best a landmark moment, but the changes attributed to it had long since been set in motion.

Van Houte was highly emotive, especially when she recalled the now equally mythological reviewer Loek Zonneveld. She pointed out a few details in history to the gathered incrowd. In the 1960s, for instance, innovative theatre had long been seen in small venues in The Hague, Utrecht and Rotterdam. Only Amsterdam lagged behind. She also pointed out that the first batch of drama students left school that year. They were looking for an application of all they had learned. Or for a place in the textbooks they had studied. And then there were the council communists, who wanted to bring the Cultural Revolution to the Netherlands.

Nothing changed

Fantastic, therefore, that during the commemoration, on 4 November 2019, 'highlights' of the 1969 discussion were re-enacted. Disconcerting to witness how the discussion then is almost identical to today. Just look at the countless forums, symposia and meet-ups now taking place at festivals. Or the annual Paradiso debate. Art always has to do all sorts of things, that hasn't changed in 50 years. Indeed, as Van Houte pointed out in her speech: maybe art has to do more and more. But it can do less and less.

UItimately, Nan van Houte's speech, which can be heard from minute 21 onwards in the podcast, a great tribute to Marga Klompé, the Netherlands' first female minister. It was she who had long planned the changes introduced after 'Tomaat'. The minister, who also introduced the Assistance Act, was a culture minister you can only dream of. Someone with a broad heart and an eye for the freedom of the artist. As a member of the Catholic People's Party, she had no problem awarding Gerard Reve a grand prize, shortly after he had drawn the ire of religious Holland because of the legendary 'Donkey Trial'.

Collateral damage

Thanks to Van Houte's speech, the evening did not become a celebration of an old success. The myth of 'Tomato' was buried: the changes had come anyway, there was no need for those tomatoes, including the 'collateral damage' they caused in the lives of the ´old guard´. And that people, who everyone was so keen to stick their necks out for in 1969, that people, that working class, is now something that people on the stage are a bit afraid of.

In our raw podcast, listen to the speech by Ewald Engelen, who explains this in his familiar way, followed by an excerpt from the re-enacted 1969 discussion and, finally, Nan van Houte's wonderful speech.