The scene is over, the curtain comes down, but the actor remains lying on the stage. Beatriz Duque whispers “stand up, it’s over”, but he, without moving, answers, “no. I’m dead”. The stage directions indicated his death at that point in the play, and so he died. He was an obedient actor.

Beatriz is the director of Teatro El Grupo, a theatre company from Colombia that works with people who have Down syndrome or learning disabilities. They have been working for ten years and now have six plays in their repertoire.

Beatriz started the theatre with nine actors, and although some of them have moved on, others have stayed for a long time. Claudia Chávez, for instance, started at El Grupo nine years ago. “I love acting because I am free. I’m happy playing my roles”. El Grupo now has Seventeen actors in its ranks.

Their plays haven’t been easy, and Beatriz won’t allow her actors to get away with anything less than a great performance. They work like a typical theatre and enjoy challenging themselves. Their works have included plays by Shakespeare, Lewis Carrol, Federico García Lorca and works of Greek mythology. “They are people with plenty of abilities who can do activities that sometimes it is believed they cannot do. There is a lack of trust. I like challenging them and getting the best out of them as people and as artists”.

The theatre has opened doors for them in other respects too, and Beatriz believes it helps them better understand their lives and their relationship with the world. It has also helped them achieve a greater degree of independence.

One day during rehearsals, Claudia said to me - “I was born with natural intelligence. And although sometimes, just occasionally, I forget my lines, I can learn them all. God gave me the gift to understand”. In that play she was playing three characters, a bad snake, a penguin Queen and a tree. “It’s not difficult to play three characters because the tree doesn’t have lines. Only the snake and the queen have lines”.

Beatriz trusts them. She has faith in their mental and physical abilities. She believes in her group and is constantly looking ahead. Their current ambition is to make a documentary about the work they have been doing for the last ten years, and they are trying to raise the money to do so. “We want to share with the world the dreams & goals of this team of young & disabled artists”, they explain.

It’s still only a dream, but they know that dreaming is just the first step. Beatriz dreamt of the group and, today, she has a ensemble of happy actors, more confident and freer than ever.

Three years ago, Paulina, who was an actress at the time, told me: “To act is easy if you learn your lines and you love what you do. Working in the theatre is a pleasure for us”. 

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Photos: courtesy of El Grupo

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