Partner Michael Heltau
Loek Huisman (Bandung, 25 January1926 – Vienna, 29 December 2017) was a Dutch actor, director, author and translator. Huisman lived and worked most of his life in Austria. He has appeared as an actor at the Burgtheater (Vienna), the Salzburger Landestheater, the Residenztheater (Munich) and at the Salzburger Festspiele.
Huisman was born in Bandung (Java) in 1926 and spent his childhood on Java and Sumatra. After high school in The Hague, where he took his final exams in 1944, he took drama lessons. In 1946 he made a six-month tour through the Dutch East Indies, after which he was a student at the Theater in The Hague for a year. In the meantime, he took the entrance exam at the Max Reinhardt Seminarin Vienna.
From 1950 to 1954 he was an actor at the Burgtheater and 'Die Insel' in Vienna, and at the Salzburger Landestheater. In 1955 he moved to Munich, where he gave up acting and started writing. His radio play 'Die Liebe zu mir' (1959) was broadcast by German radio stations and, under the title 'Love and Gratitude', also by the BBC. In 1968 he staged a Goethe evening for Helene Thimig, Johanna Matz and Michael Heltau. It was so successful that the Burgtheater organized a world tour with it. Many directing assignments followed, including for the Wiener Volkstheater. Huisman was also involved in the 'Wiener Festwochen'.
In particular, Huisman became known for the textual and musical dramaturgy for the solo evenings of his life partner, the actor and singer Michael Heltau, with whom he lived and worked for 64 years, and for whom he wrote and directed tailor-made television and live shows, which were also shown on Dutch television in the 1970s under the name 'Liedercircus'. Huisman also made a name for himself as a translator. Commissioned by Diogenes Verlag, he adapted Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet' in 1973, including for the Italian director Giorgio Strehler, in a new translation, for the Salzburg Festival. In addition to plays, he translated many titles of French chanson legends such as Brel, Aznavour, and Trenet into German. [4]
In 2004, he was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art 1st Class by State Secretary for the Arts Franz Morak. Loek Huisman called him someone who thought in der Stille an die Zusammenhänge. The former director of the Burgtheater, now chief of the Munich State Opera, Klaus Bachler, described Huisman on that occasion as someone who has always allowed himself the freedom to do what he thinks. Huisman only worked for people with whom he got along well. In family circles he said I only work for friends. He died on 29 December 2017 in his hometown of Vienna at the age of 91.
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