Tom Struyf wonders how we can best take care of people who deviate from the norm

The Flemish theater maker Tom Struyf and his lover went on a trip a few years ago and ended up in a meaningless village north of New York. During a walk along a vast lake, Struyf discovered a cemetery of patients from the former Willard psychiatric institution, which in the meantime has had to make way for an enormous prison. Struyf became fascinated by the developments in the village and the stories of the residents, including former employees of the institution.

In his solo performance Finding Willard Struyf wonders how we as a society can best care for people who deviate from the norm. In an engaging way he tells the stories of a few ordinary Americans whom we also get to know through film images. Friendly people who, he later discovers, may have misled Struyf when it comes to the question of how successful the former facility was.

With a recreated miniature of the village, which is colored in in various ways as a satellite photo during the performance, Struyf brings a small American church community to an intimate theater setting, in which the audience sits around the set. You sometimes wonder why we need to know what happened in Willard for a century and a half. What makes Willard’s individuality so special in Struyf’s eyes?

Before the piece collapses, however, the moved Struyf shares a personal tragedy that grips you. An event that gives a deeper meaning to his search for those who deviate according to society.

Finding Willard requires patience from the theatergoer and is a bit excessive in terms of anecdotes and characters. But anyone who can open up to the beauty of rural America and human stories about a flawed healthcare system will marvel at Struyf’s remarkable trip.