King Me: Greg Shapiro holds a funhouse mirror
door Louise van der Zee
“Will you join me to King Me, 250 years of Donald Trump?” I ask a friend, who is originally from South-Africa. “The show is in English, and I think you will like that,” I go on, “I always laugh at Greg Shapiro and I think the show is also about American politics.”… “Great idea,” says my friend. “I follow the news on American politics by the hour.”
This is how it so happened that we travelled to Woerden for a night out in the beautiful Kloostertheater. During coffee I tell my friend about the bad review of the show in het Parool, that puzzled me. The reviewers main critique was that Greg Shapiro lacked hope. “Who has any hope that things might turn out well for the good with Trump?!” I asked myself out aloud. “You must be a terrible moron to think that things might get better with that man!” My friend answers me that she still has hope… that the Democrats will win the midterms. “Yes, so do I,” I say. “Anyway, I’m interested to see whether it will be a fun show because it is said it would be ‘not optimistic enough’.”… ‘’I’m curious too,” she says. ‘’We’ll see!”
The minute Greg enters the podium the audience just hás to laugh. He wears a crow and a cloak coat that looks suspiciously like a curtain. I think the outfit is hilarious. Greg does his Trump imitation, one which has gone viral through a video clip of the show of Arjan Lubach. “Did you see that show?” I whisper to my friend. ‘’No,” she says. ‘’Neither have I. We’re lucky we see it now.” Gregs Trump imitation is indeed spot on. You can’t remain serious if you see it.
Shapiro was one of the members of the legendary Boom Chicago comedy show ‘Let’s put the fun back in fundamentalism’ about 9/11. He really is the king of improv. You can tell by the way he quickly connects with the public, as if in his second sentence already. ‘’I’m the king, and if I say ‘Huzzah’, then you all shout ‘Huzzah’ then you all shout that out a aloud a lot harder than I did, okay?” The public is very enthusiastic, and people yell their heart out. Shapiro checks the waters by finding out where most of the people in the public come from. Most theatre visitors in Woerden are from the Netherlands. ‘’If you belong to the seven percents Dutch people who think Trump is doing a great job, I must disappoint you with my show. But you can come over to me after my show and complain about it, in your Dutch Direct manner, but I do warn you though that I might use your quotes in a next show. Anything you say cán and will be used against you!”
What really is fun about the King Me show is that Shapiro holds a mirror to the Dutchies in the public. On how Dutch people are direct (‘’considered rude in other countries’’) and love their king, just because he’s a man part of the people. It’s all exaggerated in order to make it a fun house mirror. English and American culture are mocked as well.
There is space for suggestions from the public. ‘’What are the number three issues that really bother you as Europeans the most?” Shapiro asks. The comedian goes on to improvise and inserts the issues from the public in a scene, in which he’s a therapist doing a session with Trump. In this way Trump also gets a fun house mirror shown to his face. This probably bothers the real Trump because his tech bro Mark Zuckerberg has forbidden all the ads about King Me on Facebook, even for Holland, because the show would be ‘too political’…
Greg lashes out to fascists very hard and jokes about how he hopes that the strangle sex with them would just last a little bit longer as planned. These jokes obviously go too far for the public in Woerden and instead of laugher one can hear people say ‘’ohhh’’ as if to say: ‘’you can’t dó that, such a joke.” Greg explains that he doesn’t seriously calls for violence. We already understood that, since he is on a theatre stage and unfortunately no world revolution has ever started there. Also the jokes that didn’t make it in the 9/11 show 25 years ago but are presented now don’t go down very well in Woerden. I wonder if it is still too soon for those jokes or that they would land well with an audience in Amsterdam or Rotterdam, since the people in these major cities are known for their sense of harsh humour. The jokes about the second World War however go down easily in Woerden.
“What would you do in the Second World War? What would you do in the period towards the Second World War, the time of upcoming fascism?” Greg asks. And then he says: ‘’I have a surprise for you. It already is the time of upcoming fascism now. And what you do now matters!” Greg tells how he went to the Verzetsmuseum and was impressed by the Dutch freedom fighters as Miep Gies and Hanny Schaft. He was just about to tell this to the people at the desk near the entrance when he overheard their conversation. They were complaining about all the tourists in Amsterdam and all the expats and then he thought: but that fear of strangers, that is where fascism starts. So Greg Shapiro really has a message for his public.
That message really lands. “I didn’t know the Verzetsmuseum. I’m going to take my teenage children there when they come over to see me the Christmas holidays,” says my friend, during a drink afterwards. “It’s such a conservative environment in which they grow up. I hope that they will step out of their bubble through this museum and become more critical about what’s happening in the world nowadays. I can at least start a conversation about that with them about that in the museum.” If Greg would have heard this, he would have the feeling he had scored and would have yelled: “huzzah!”
To make a long story short: this show is especially fun for all those who follow the world news critically and want to laugh about their sorrow. Extra fun to go to with friends who are originally from another county. And especially meant for people who enjoy thínking about polytricks.. eahh politics.
Check where you can still buy tickets: Upcoming Comedy Shows – Greg Shapiro
P.S. Photo from photographer Emiro Smolders.
Schrijf jij ook graag over voorstellingen in jouw regio? Word recensent bij Theaternetwerk.
Foto: Emiro Smolders
