No one else is Micha Wertheim's best failure to date

On social media, and in mainstream media for that matter, it is not helpful to be overly clever. The adage of my father, who was a journalist and taught me not to be afraid of asking stupid questions, has been elevated to a code of honour. You only have to watch 15 minutes of Op1, or WNL on Sunday, and you experience toe-curling stupidity: not too bright questions from presenters who allow the dumbest answers from not too wishy-washy guests of high political status.

So now chances are that after this opening paragraph, you already find me terribly arrogant and don't actually want to read any further. Too many difficult words, too long sentences, and who am I to decide whether an Op1 presenter is stupid. Those who agree with me won't dare say it out loud.

Bit silly

Now I can reassure you: I am quite stupid. For instance, I had bought a ticket - or a login code - for the premiere of Micha Wertheim's new programme. I am a fan of this man who has more cleverness in his little finger than all of Hilversum put together and thought it would be a breeze. I did need a webcam, a microphone, and have to watch it all via a laptop or tablet, as phone would not work. 

In between all other pursuits (the struggle to survive makes you dumber), I had apparently missed an email from the ticket vendor (GUTS), so I was rather surprised to receive a text message five minutes before the start with the login details for this event that could not be viewed on my phone. On my phone, that is. 

Then a stupid person like me gets stressed, goes to forward the SMS via an e-mail to his laptop, opens the link and sees that another code has to be entered. Which I didn't know. After which I immediately start shouting that on facebook, because stupid and panicking and Wednesday night. 

Screaming toddler

Like a proverbial squawking toddler, I eventually get in touch with Laurens from GUTS who keeps himself neatly contained and passes me the rather simple code. I can log in and drop in over 15 minutes late to Micha Wertheim's show. That takes some getting used to, it is a zooming session in which, apart from Micha from the theatre on duty (at the premiere it was the old Luxor in Rotterdam), spectators like me are also in the picture. 

The show evolves, and from amazed boredom, the evening progresses to bewilderment and deep admiration. 

How Micha Wertheim manages that? Giving away even one minute of what happens would be a shame, and it is impossible to retell anyway. Wertheim is too brilliant and too smart for that. 

400 people?

Not everyone likes that. Wertheim does not draw full theatres outside the suburbs, and according to the figures above the stream, there were only about 400 people who had bought a ticket for this premiere. Though you may well doubt everything you see on screen after the event. 

Micha Wertheim makes you feel stupid, and that starts - for me at least - with the hassle with the login codes. Some people find it very annoying to feel stupid, but that does not apply to me. That Micha Wertheim already manages, with every show, to push the boundaries of philosophy and cabaret in one and the same programme: inimitable. 

Recently, Wertheim wrote an extraordinarily intelligent essay on De Correspondent: What the best artworks have in common: they have failed. We can only conclude that Wertheim's latest programme is a grandiose failure. And therefore the best artwork of this pandemic. 

Good to know

Info and tickets: Online performance : The Micha Wertheim Society