Willem Brugman takes a spiritual approach to theatre 

Actor, director, journeyman, Willem Brugman has made an indelible mark on the Cairns theatrical landscape.

It’s his third year with Tropical Arts, a community-based theatre group he joined in his first year in Cairns, first as ensemble trainer and director in When the Wheels fall off the World, then playing the role of the Duke in Measure for Measure, and this year as the friar in the steam-punk version of Romeo and Juliet.

“I’m a journeyman,” Willem says, taking a break from preparations for the play at the Tanks Arts Centre.
“I’ve learned a lot of things.”

For Willem, theatre is akin to breathing.

He has been involved in it for nigh on 40 years.

“In a way my life in drama began when I was an altar boy and I never got out of theatre since,” he says.

He was attracted to the mass conducted in Latin with all its rituals and ceremony as a boy in his home in Arnhem in the Netherlands.

Smiling now as he reminisces, he says Australia having an Arnhem Land was one of the attractions when he felt the environment “whispering” in his ear to visit.

Willem sees theatre as a separate reality.

“It’s the opposite side of a mirror and it creates another perspective on life,” he says.

He trained as a journalist initially because he had such an interest in storytelling, but discovered theatre as the forum to beat all others.

He speaks of the use of the stage as a platform and an occasion for a community to come together.

“Then there is catharsis,” he says, as he weaves a spell drawing me into his world.

“They can learn through catharsis; for a moment all agree on the quality of living.”

You get the feeling while listening to Willem talk about theatre that it can be a far deeper experience than you ever previously imagined, but while grasping the essence of what he speaks at the time, it later slips away from words.

It may be because Willem, who has developed his own method of performance, says that what he teaches is on a subliminal level.

“I make the invisible visible and the inaudible audible,” he says.

“There is a certain language of the spirit that can be spoken through the media of theatre that is about feeling and touch.

“If you know how to do that, you can make magic happen.

“Something universal is experienced, there is catharsis, a sublime agreement that moves you.”

His big interest is in finding new ways of expression and creating a Centre for Australian theatre research with a mix of traditions to include “oriental, occidental and indigenous theatre”.

“Cairns is the right place, it can do that, and it deserves that,” he says, because of its multicultural nature and because of the amount of talent.

Willem’s interest in intercultural theatre began when he studied at a theatre academy that had teachers from all over the world.

After graduation he toured in Theatre of the Third World in Europe before writing plays and helping others with their craft as a dramaturg.

There is no way to pin Willem down into one part or other of theatre that he does most or enjoys more.

“I’m a theatre man,” he says, after I’ve dragged him away from hammering nails into the sets for Romeo and Juliet in Tank 5.

“I build sets, I make costumes, and at midnight I sit with the creative team,” he says.

You can add that he is a dramaturg, director and actor, and that’s still only half of what he does.

“I’m an elder in international theatre,” Willem explains.

“There are many styles, forms and languages in theatre, and I speak that universal language.”

In his youth he toured with an international performance research group, KISS, and performed the classic Greek tragedies, and even tackled what must have been a strange version of Dante’s Divine Comedy, running at 24 hours.
Visiting Australia on tour, he was enraptured, finding the country to be “the most fascinating multicultural experiment in the world”.

He believed he had to return to create a cultural research theatre laboratory, which he did in New South Wales in 1998.
But first he travelled to the acting hub of New York’s Manhattan for three months, and like many before him, was ensnared by the excitement and stayed. “I came home seven years later,” he says, laughing.

Willem did, however, avoid the plight of many a New York actor, that is, spending the majority of their time working as a waiter.

He believes his salvation was his leanings towards non-traditional theatre and his desire and ability to do just about anything in the theatre world.

“I was in experimental theatre, musical theatre, jazz on the Lower East Side, and I became more and more involved in specialised and devised theatre,” Willem says.

After moving to Sydney, he founded Culture Lab International, which he directed for 10 years before travelling around the country, and finally up the east coast to visit the former director of KISS, Jean Pierre Voos.

Voos had, unfortunately, died in early 2008, but Willem stayed and wrote for his company, Tropical Sun, before being invited by the late Diane Cilento of Karnak Theatre to establish an international theatre ensemble in the Far North. He lived onsite at Karnak for six months with his partner and two children.

“She was always bigger than life with a murderous type of energy,” Willem says of the actress, who made the Far North her home.

Cairns became the place to create his dream.

“I came in on street level and explained I was a theatre man with a vision to establish an intra-cultural performing ensemble,” Willem says.

“My first year here I did a lot of voluntary work.”

Since then he has had meetings with Council, the Civic Theatre, has worked with CoCA and has written to state government on behalf of the development of theatre in Cairns.

This year he has no less than nine projects, including work with Dance North, James Cook University, Tropical Arts, JUTE, and Theatre of Exchanges at Tanks, where he passes on his knowledge to anyone interested in developing their craft using his type of psychic technique.

He is very positive for the future of theatre in Cairns.

“It used to be when people were 16 and were interested in a career in theatre, they had to leave Cairns, but the other day I met people who came here to be involved in theatre,” he says.

The journeyman has continued learning: since having children he says everything he does has taken on a deeper meaning.

“Everyone’s child becomes your child, and you think of our responsibility and the part we play,” he says.

As a theatre man he has continued to learn in a far from lucrative field but Willem couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
“It’s a vocation,” he says.

>> See Guillaume “Willem” Brugmanis in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet from October 14 to 22. Visit www.tanksartscentre.com.au for more details. His Theatre of Exchanges performance arts training is on every Saturday at Tanks Arts Centre until December 3, and the workshops are free. To book, phone Willem on 0434 595 674.

Share this article