Petra Laseur was one of the most versatile actresses of her generation

Petra Laseur was not allowed to play at the Amsterdam Montessori School. The school had a strict rule: students did not read. And so the daughter of the well -known theater parents Cees Laseur and Mary Dresselhuys were kept far from the school stage.

She then reported to the Amsterdam Theater School at the age of sixteen, where she graduated in 1959. Immediately she was offered a contract with the Dutch comedy and made her debut in the comedy Learned ladies (Les Femmes Savantes) Van Molière – The start of a glorious career. Petra Laseur died last Friday at the age of 85, her family notes NRC.

She married poet Martin Veltman in 1976, who died in 1995. She had two sons from an earlier marriage. Until shortly before her death, Laseur regularly visited theater performances, preferably in ‘her’ Stadsschouwburg in Amsterdam or in the adjacent Nieuwe de la Martheater. Since 1992 she also awarded the Mary Dresselhuys Prize every two years, for the development of the play in the broadest sense of the word.

Swimming rehearsal

But her interest reached beyond the stage. Laseur was socially involved, read daily NRC and Het Parool and, following Veltman, was a board member of the Onze Language for a number of years.

Later she became Ambassador of the Kidney Foundation. By the famous BNN program The Great Donor Show In 2007 she had come up with the idea of ​​giving a kidney to a her unknown patient.

After she had passed all the medical tests, she was assigned a place in a dormitory before the operation in the hospital. That went too far for her. « I like to help society, but I want my own room, » she told the nurse. And so happened. The entire donor story, about which she could tell tasty, typifies her. Including the requirement of your own room.

Petra Laseur did not act (“They do that in Good times, bad times« ), She played theater. The white wine was not in the fridge at her home, but in the refrigerator. And she was a grandmother, not a grandmother. In that role, she did not interfere with the upbringing of her five grandchildren. Unless one of them licked a knife. » I immediately say something about that. « 

Gardening with lacquered nails

The meeting point for Laseur and her (grand) children was, certainly in the sunny months of the year, her houseboat in Weesp, in a bend of the Vecht. She enjoyed peace and rehearsed her lyrics while swimming. In between, she cut the reed with lacquered nails.

Petra Maria Laseur was born in Amsterdam on November 26, 1939. Until 1968 she built a varied repertoire at the Dutch Comedie from joy to tragedies and from world stage to new Dutch texts. That wealth of playing styles in mainly large roles makes her one of the most versatile actresses of her generation. From the start of her career she was often seen in television series, such as The Silent Power (1974) and Rose Geur & Wodka Lime (2005).

The film world also discovered her talent. She played in 2001 The Discovery of Heaven and, with Bram van der Vlugt, in Family (2001). She also often performed with her mother. On the occasion of Dresselhuys’ eighty -birth birthday in 1987, they played together A very pleasant viewwritten especially for them by Paul Haenen.

That Petra Laseur connected to the Dutch comedy has never been able to accept her father – he was the founder and director of the Haagse Comedie. In An interview with NRC Laseur said that there was « never (was) anything between her father and herself. » He left the family when she was five. Together with her mother and her older sister Merel, Laseur said he led a carefree life.

Sherry box

Laseur’s game had a big constant: it was always crystal clear, thanks in part to her perfect dictation and awarding voice. With mild spot, she was able to imitate young colleagues on stage who didn’t care: « We have channels, right? »

She also never let herself be seduced into pathos or exaggerated emotionality in her game. Twice she received the Theo d’Or, the highest theater awards: in 1973 for the title role in Hedda Gabler van Ibsen at Zuidelijk Toneel Globe and in 1981 for her role of Lotte in Large and small From the young German author Botho Strauss through the public theater.

The highlight was the scene in which Laseur as Lotte flipped into a huge book that was on stage for her. She hoped to find an answer to her life questions and she wanted to redeem the pain, loneliness and heartache. Lases Almost rational interpretation formed a wonderful contrast with the violent compassion of this piece.

She did not shy away from the modern theater, although she always remained an actress with a desire for the theater of earlier. In interviews, she liked to refer to the « Box Sherry » who stood in the time of the Dutch comedy during the general behind the stage « Against De Dorst » or the horse and car that once drove into the set pieces in Tilburg.

Nevertheless, she later played respectable roles in her career in the famous mounting performances of Gerardjan Rijnders, such as Bakelite (1987). Later she admitted that these at the time did revolutionary representations far from her, but she fulfilled her task with verve.

A delicious life

In December 2023 she received a bad diagnosis. She didn’t want to know anything about operations and chemotherapy. « To be able to live dead sick, three months longer? Didn’t see me. I had a great life, » she told family and friends. « My life is completed but as long as I am healthy, I will live happily for a moment. »

One of Laseur’s last impressive performances was in Richard III (2010) In addition to Gijs Scholten van Aschat In the title role. In 2011 she played the role of Queen Wilhelmina in the acclaimed musical Soldier of Orange. Here she sparkled as she had done all her life: royal, worthy and with perfect dictation.

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