Blown away by Tina, the musical

It was of course a coincidence that the premiere of Tina, the musical took place in the Utrecht Beatrixtheater. On Croeselaan, the last side street, Bolksbeekstraat, was my safe fortress. during my student years. An upstairs apartment that I shared with housemate B, with a phone disguised as a gumball machine in the hallway. It was maybe five hundred meters from the theater where the premiere of Tina took place, but the world that was depicted there could not have been further from my safe warm bed.

Of course I knew about Ike, Tina, the loose hands, and the cocaine. But there was still so much I didn't know. About the annoying mother who abandoned her and who allowed herself to be pampered by Ike on her deathbed, a.k.a. the man who abused her own daughter for sixteen years. About the impasse Tina was in after her breakup with Ike. The years of poverty in which she cleaned during the day and performed at night. About the racial differences that were still so present in America.

What I did know was the moment she knocked on a hotel door, bloodied after a fight with Ike. ‘I am Anna Mae Bullock, I have 36 cents, but can you give me a room? I promise I will pay you back.’

It was Sunday afternoon and I must say that going to musicals is not exactly the hobby of my dearly beloved. But hey, it was a premiere and being alone is just so alone, so he stepped over the threshold. When I was already trying to raise the dikes for my tear ducts by pressing my fingers against them during the first scene, I saw a raised eyebrow from him for a moment, but then he was also won over.

That was due to the decor, the projections in the background, the clever way in which some songs were sung in English in a natural way (although Han Koreneef really translated them very well, making the essence of the song sometimes come across even better), but especially because of Nyassa Alberta. What. A. Woman.

What. A. Voice. What. A. Body. Playing Tina Turner has a high risk of caricature. The moves, the clothes, the hair. There seem to be two possibilities: either you imitate her or you become a caricature. Nyassa Alberta is Tina. In everything. Right down to her tears at the end.

My favorite moments:

When Tina sings for the first time without Ike at Phil Spector's. Without a band, in an empty studio with technicians and their ‘wall of sound’. ‘Don't sing so hurriedly,’ says Spector. ‘Find the connection with God in yourself, do you think you can do that, Tina?’ Yes, she can. Nyassa almost comes off the stage during this number. And when she finally decides (when Ike starts hitting her son with his belt) to give Ike a good piece of her mind instead of just taking it, the audience almost jumps on stage to help her.

During the applause, I almost felt sorry for Juneoer Mers, the actor who plays Ike and very wisely came on stage with a white-I-come-in-peace handkerchief.

Tina ends as it began, with Tina and her iconic hairstyle, her red leather strapless dress (‘I don't wear short skirts to be sexy, I wear short skirts so I can dance freely’) and happily her finally found love Erwin Bach by her side.

We Wikipedia the whole way back. About Ike who died of a cocaine overdose at 76. About her children, of whom son Craig committed suicide at 59. And she hears about this when she is a guest on a show by Giorgio Armani (in whose dress she eventually married Erwin). About her half-sister who died in a car accident in the 1940s.

But also about Erwin. Her great, true, and only love. I find a clip where she tells Oprah about Erwin who, after 25 years of love, donates his kidney to her. When she says that at that moment she thinks ‘Maybe he really loves me’ I have to cry a little again.

Tina, you blew me away with hurricane force 20. Compared to you, Ciara was a spring breeze.

Image: Stage Entertainment