"I saw you feeling eager." Quite an interesting sentence, in terms of construction. Not unexpected from the mouth of someone like Griet Op de Beeck who has more than earned her spurs in the arts. But why was this observation, followed by Op de Beeck's observation that things would "turn out all right" with Eva Crutzen, the conclusion of three hours of Summer Guest?
Had we missed a diagnosis on the sofa at home at the beginning of the evening? Had actress, writer, singer, television producer and cabaret performer Eva Crutzen come to Hilversum with a request for help, and was that why Diederik Ebbinge was also off-screen at the director's table chatting with the technicians he obviously still knew from the filming of Promenade?
Homework
Just a few questions on episode three of this curious season Summer guests. We had started the evening here, at home on the sofa, slightly hopeful. Possibly Griet Op de Beeck, who in the first two episodes suffered from too much focus on her own story (with Eus) and a lack of listening skills (with Simon Kuper), would now make room for Eva Crutzen to talk about the sources of inspiration that have made her one of the most striking appearances in television land.
Things soon went awry. Once again, Op de Beeck failed to introduce her guest. Now, of course, we could all have done our homework (as some readers of these articles will suggest), but such an introduction is not just there for that single non-introduced viewer. It also provides handles for the well-introduced viewer to know what the angle will be for the three-hour interview.
Neatly chronological
What we got now was a neat summary of Crutzen's life starting at the beginning, with the big hook being the young death of her mother. Very bad, of course, but not really a secret, and also pretty much an open door for any amateur psychologist who has ever started their own analysis with ChatGPT.
From the first minute, it was clear that Op de Beeck only wanted to know what Crutzen felt about the fragments she had chosen. So often before the guest herself could tell us why she made the choice, Op de Beeck was already steering towards what she thought would be the feeling prompt. This way, we didn't find out anything about Crutzen's life and work, but she could stay in her comfort zone of cosy chatting about feelings.
Striking back hard
Moreover, Op de Beeck demanded vulnerability from Eva Crutzen, without giving anything in return herself. This became clear at the very end when she momentarily dropped her armour and used the word "I" at something sensitive, after which Crutzen asked her a counter question. That was slammed back into Crutzen's face so rock hard with a right direct angle that she didn't dare after that. Thus the last chance for conversation disappeared, and it remained a rather superficial evening of amateur therapy. This Summer Guest would be about vulnerability, but not Op de Beeck's.
One can guess why the three hours were invariably about what the guest felt about her carefully selected excerpts. Pregnant example is the excerpt from the documentary on Young@Heart, in which an old almost dead man sings a Coldplay song he was actually going to sing with a friend, who just died too soon himself.
You could talk for hours about that documentary, in which theatre-makers from the US-based No Theatre take a singing choir of elderly people under their wing. For instance, at some point it becomes clear that the young makers are less concerned with the welfare of their very elderly choir members than with the universal artistic value of their own efforts, with which the choir (which I've seen a number of times witnessed live) became the subject of a kind of 'ageploitation'. It could be just the thing for a painful series by Diederik Ebbinge, in whose team Eva Crutzen has been causing a furore for a few years now.
Tell me about your mother
Such things are interesting to talk about, but Op de Beeck only wanted to know how Crutzen (38) felt about being older now than her mother when she died. Needless to say, some tears flowed there, and that had happened before, this evening.
What was behind it, that Op de Beeck made her statements (because she rarely asks questions) about her guest's emotional life so central to these three hours? Why was the sentence "I've seen you feel eagerly" the conclusion that Op de Beeck expressed about her patient with a superior kind of detachment? Why, after three hours, was she sure Eva Crutzen would be fine?
Is it because among psychologists the actor is rather poorly regarded, as someone who never really comes to himself, but hides behind characters and laughs away the real problems? Had Op de Beeck, who herself does not have such happy memories of her career in Flemish theatre, thought of showing Eva Crutzen the way to her feelings?
Help Halsema get through the summer
Somewhere at the end of the evening, a message came through on Bluesky from Femke Halsema, who will be a guest of Griet Op de Beeck in this year's penultimate broadcast. The mayor of Amsterdam, who is under heavy fire from the misogynist part of right-wing Holland, is quite excited, she reveals.
After this evening, we can reassure her: Op de Beeck will only be curious about how that feels. Just as the genocide expert who gets to sit on the divan next week will only have to tell you what that does to your feelings about living now.
The conclusion, presumably, will be that they are both allowed to be completely there for a while. After all, so was Eva.
