Rembrandt on stage

Dutch musical celebrates life of artist Rembrandt

By Arthur Max Associated Press

HOORN, Netherlands ?- Like most Dutchmen, Henk Poort knew little about Rembrandt, beyond his two or three most famous paintings. Then Poort was asked to play the Dutch master on stage.

?'?'Rembrandt The Musical'' sounds like classic kitsch, part of the commercial hoopla surrounding the 400th anniversary of Rembrandt's birth July 15.

But the $12.5 million show is a lavish production that seeks to illuminate Rembrandt's exuberant and sometimes tragic life.

As an artist, he is portrayed as rebellious and disdainful of popular opinion. As a person, he is a somewhat rakish figure bedeviled by three women.

?'?'What I'm trying to project is that he's going his own way,'' Poort said after a preview performance in this northern Dutch city. ?'?'He's not bowing his head for the rich people. They ask him, ?'Make me more beautiful than I am,' and he says, ?'If you have wrinkles, you get wrinkles.' He's very truthful to himself.''

Scholars say that Rembrandt could be vindictive, quarrelsome and a deadbeat, but Poort plays him with sympathy.

?'?'He had a very difficult life. He lost two wives, four children, his house, his paintings,'' said the actor, who also is one of Holland's leading opera performers.