Paul de Groot

Paul de Groot (1887-1942) was a Dutch elocutionist, singer, actor and director.

Biography

Born Paul Christiaan de Groot 11 January 1887 in Soerabaja, Dutch East India, to a father in the Military, trained at the Teaterskool ("Theatre School"), Amsterdam (1904-1907).

His career seems to fall into three periods:

The first Dutch period: 1907-1923

He became an apprentice for, and later member of, Eduard Verkade's De Hagespelers company (1907-1912; 1913-1917; 1921-1924), and in the same period also had stints with some other companies, inter alia Het Princessetooneel and the company of Cor Ruys. He undertook various tours in the East as well (e.g. as performing as singer and doing some amateur work in Suriname, 1919-1920) and joined Anton Verheyen on a tour to Dutch East India in 1923.

He also did film work in this period, for example playing "John Herwood" in George André Beranger's 1922 silent film, Was She Guilty? (alternative title: Thou Shalt Not; and known as Gij zult niet Dooden - "Thou shall not kill" - in Dutch)[1]

The South Africa period

De Groot claims that he then negotiated with African Theatres, and came to Cape Town in November 1924. His first recital was in the Afrikaanse Koffiehuis, and his first produced plays Zaken zijn Zaken ("Business is Business" - Mirbeau) in December 1924 and Overschotje (Scampolo by Niccodemi) in January 1925, both at the Railway Institute, Cape Town.

After touring a few towns, he devised and publicised a plan for the first Afrikaans professional theatre company. His first recital in Pretoria was on 2 April, 1925, in the Nationale Klubsaal ("National Club Hall") of the Nederlandse Vereniging, followed again by two plays in Dutch - De Gentleman Inbreker ("The Gentleman Housebreaker" Raffles?) and Claire Bellerosa on 23 April in the same venue. More significantly, two original Afrikaans plays - Lenie (J.H.H. de Waal) and Die Heks ("The Witch", C. Louis Leipoldt) - were presented in the Opera House, Pretoria, on 2 May 1925, in association with Stephanie Faure and utilizing the cream of local amateur performers including Iris Martin, Wena Naudé, Jessie Breedt and De Groot himself (*??). On 9th July 1925 he opened with a successful production of Huis Toe (Heimat by Südermann, tr A.E Carinus-Holzhausen) and in June 1926 he joined forces with Hendrik Hanekom, to found the Paul de Groot Toneelgeselskap. The company initially consisted of Hendrik Hanekom (Business manager), Mathilde Hanekom, Simon Malherbe, and Anna Marais from the Hanekom Company, Paul de Groot (Artistic director) and Wena Naudé from the former De Groot group and two novices, Gert Borstlap and Maxie Botha.

Their first production was Huis Toe (Südermann - 1926), then As Mans Huishou (Jan van Ees - 1927), Gerieflike Huwelik (A. Dumas snr - 1927), Die Inbreker (Van Ees, 1927, toured by a second company led by Wena Naudé) and Besigheid is Besigheid (Octave Mirbeau, 1928). In March 1928 (Binge has 15 March 1929) Hanekom and De Groot split company, apparently because of De Groot's avarice. De Groot continued on his own, touring i.a. with Rosekrans (Barclay/Bisson) with Lydia Lindeque, Haar Twede Man (Géraldy) with André Huguenet (Gert Borstlap renamed), Henry van Wyk and Rena la Roche and Geleende Geld (Ibsen) with Hélène Botha, Huguenet, Van Wyk, Peter Coetzee. Both very successful. By the end of 1929 he had already (by Binge's calculations) produced and toured with 8 Afrikaans plays (a total of 891 performances) and briefly returned to Europe for a while, then continued with Rosekrans till October 1930.

In 1931 he undertook a short (3 month) "world tour" to the Belgian Congo and India as part of a Dutch company. He returned in April 1931 and formed a new company to celebrate his 25 jubileum and toured with Besigheid is Besigheid again (83 performances). The cast consisted of a number of Free State amateurs, including Lydia Lindeque, Roekie van Rensburg, J. Lückhoff, David Muller, F. Botten and P. van Ingen. He then went on to do Die Verliefde Indringer (later known as Die Oorwinnaar- 1932) and Bodemvas (1932) a dramatisation of S. Bruwer's Afrikaans novel, the latter in association with the Universiteit van Stellenbosch se Dramatiese Vereniging. The cast included Yvonne Liebenberg in the lead, and Maria van Dyk, P.J. Loots, Margeret Webb, Gideon Boshoff, Nic Laubscher, J. Scholtz and Elsa Dreyer. The play failed miserably.

He was then invited to work under the auspices of African Theatres and did Verborge Sonde (La Monaco by Pierre Frondaie) with Henriëtte de Waal (August-October 1933), Misdade van die Vaders ("Misdeed of the Fathers" by Albert du Biel), Kain (also by Du Biel - 1934). This cast consisted of Henriëtte de Waal, Bettie Reitz, Nell van Nieuwenhuizen, Rosa du Plessis, John Brill, Johannes Coetzee, Dewald van der Merwe, Tommie Beckley and Frits de Lange. The next play was Eerloos ("Without Honour" by **, translated by A.J.A. Roux - 1935) and opened in the Eendragsaal in Johannesburg with Tommie Beckley, Hetta Beckley, Queenie Vorster, Jacobus Swanepoel and Jan Swiegers.

In April 1935 De Groot was asked to substitute for Walter Huston in certain scenes being shot in Rhodesia for the Gaumont-British film on Cecil John Rhodes and as a result the De Groot company broke up. It was in this time that De Groot met and married an English widow, Katherine May Harris (born Manchester 1896).

According to Siegfried Mynhardt (cited by Danie Botha, 2006: p.96), by 1937 De Groot's spirit was broken and he was basically destitute and living in a boarding house in Johannesburg. It seems that he then returned to Holland to live in Wassenaar and work in film. Danie Botha (2006, p. 97) cites an undated newspaper report from the F.C.L. Bosman archives, saying that De Groot had travelled to Durban by fast train, to take a boat back to Holland. However, Ludwig Binge (1978, p. 181) suggests that he first went to England, before settling in Wassenaar, a suburb of Den Haag.

After South Africa: The third period

There is a great deal of uncertainty about the details of De Groot's career and life after he had left South Africa. One finds only sporadic, sometimes contradictory, and not always reliable, information about him in this period. Even the date of his exit from the South African theatre milieu is uncertain, varying from 1935 to 1937:

For example, according to the Dutch Theater Encyclopedie[2], "Vanaf 1930 trad hij weer in Nederlands-Indië op met voordrachten e.d., in 1935 was hij terug bij Verkade, maar in april 1939 vertrok hij weer naar zijn vaderland. Daar speelde hij tot kort voor zijn dood bij het gezelschap van Leo de Hartogh".

Yet

In 1935 he married an English widow, Katherine May Harris (born Manchester 1896), and returned to Holland to live in Wassenaar and work in film.

Sadly however this did not seem to work out all that well, it seems that De Groot largely disappeared from the public eye in this final period, though a few tantalizing snippets of information have been found by various authors.

His impact

De Groot had an enormous artistic influence on the growth of Afrikaans theatre, both in terms of technique and quality (an autocratic director of the Meininghen school, he insisted on effective texts and quality staging), and of theatre administration. If nothing else he discovered and trained numerous prominent theatre personalities, among the most notable of them being André Huguenet, Lydia Lindeque, Siegfried Mynhardt and Wena Naudé, who all had an enormous impact on the development of indigenous professional theatre, particularly in Afrikaans. Die Rosekrans, Besigheid is besigheid, Paul de Groot se reisende toneelgroep met Lydia Lindeque.

Sources

Ludwig Binge, 1969

André Huguenet, 1950

https://theaterencyclopedie.nl/wiki/Paul_de_Groot

https://theaterencyclopedie.nl/wiki/Leo_de_Hartogh

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0348352/

E-mail correspondence from Anthony Akerman, 10 September 2022.

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