Blind people or people with low vision acting on a stage in Lima? Meet the SinVergüenza Theater group directed by Lucho Cáceres

Surprised by the number of selfies and photos that they asked for, he decided to accept his friend’s invitation and began to give some acting classes. This is how the SinVergüenza Theater was born, made up of blind and low vision actors. “We started with one hour a week, then became more consistent as confidence grew in our members. The first year we came up with a small work, the second another to present it to friends and family. In the third year we started charging five soles per ticket. We grew little by little until this year we are in a bigger theater, we got to Juliet”, account excited. The testimonial montage “Así nos vemos” has just released its second season and will only be available until December 18.

“If they had taken me at the age of 7 or 8 to see a play of this type, I think I would have been less indifferent to life with people who have visual disabilities. That is the value of theater, it puts you in front of a mirror “.

Lucho Cáceres / actor and director On the need to give visibility to people with disabilities.

—What do you think, apart from space, is the main obstacle for the group of actors you direct?

Perhaps it is the only one, once they know the place there is no major difference with the actors with their five senses in operation. I discovered that on the way, when I went to one of my students’ houses, and it is that when you go home you do not realize that they are blind because they are aware of their own space, they do not bump into anything, they walk quickly. It is peculiar to see them in their usual space. That happened in our rehearsal place and where we presented the works until this year. The great challenge has been, after 12 years, to move to a larger room. That was our great fear, learning to locate ourselves, because we knew Cercil’s. But to my surprise the boys explored the place and quickly located themselves.

—You told me that the actors of Teatro Sinvergüenza have been here for more than a decade, is that their main strength?

As all this started without any planning, 70 or 80% is made up of people who have been there since the first year. What Teatro Sinvergüenza has is that it is a cast that knows each other very well. No one has entered for more than five years. I work in this play more than with the actors with the subjects, I know their limitations, defects, virtues, the friction that exists in the group and we use that to tell our testimonial.

—How do these collective creations work?

They are made by us. We have never done one by a specific author. The latter is testimonial, but before we have done more fictional things. This time the play is about them arriving at the theater, they are waiting for me and it is our first day at the theater. At that moment they confront each other and question whether they are really actors and if they are prepared to act in a big theater. That detonates in a work in which they talk about their own experience and stories. Something that we discovered almost from the beginning is that humor is a powerful weapon to exorcise problems, to undress ourselves, and that is why our works have always had a high share of humor. Our main laughingstock is blindness and it is through blindness that we make this disability known. To this day I do not stop discovering things about blindness and those who suffer from it, I think it is for this reason that I continue with them. Seeing my students reintegrated into society is a daily lesson for me.

—Tell us about some of the plays you’ve staged.

We start from a premise and begin to create. Once we did a play called “Crucero de la Isla Buenavista.” We were talking about the series and we mentioned the “Love Cruise”, so we thought about what would happen on a shipwrecked cruise ship for the blind. Within the work, seven of them manage to reach an island where they can see, there the conflict arises: accept the ransom and return to the blind world in which they lived. Once again we were talking about trials and we did “Blind Case”, about a trial of a blind man. We always go that way, playing, inventing, thinking, doing exercises, so we put the piece together in pieces. Once we got together with a deaf-mute theater group, Teatro en Silencio. It was crazy, because there was a month to go before the premiere and we couldn’t put together a play together. There the idea of ​​the testimonial was born. Talking with the director of their theater, we decided to tell what had happened to us, that was in 2018 or 2019 more or less.

—What life stories have you known during this time?

There are people whose mourning for being blind has been three years at home, without going out. Until, well, you have to face things and life goes on. There are many stories in reality, but more than these what I have learned is to put myself in the shoes of a person who has a world without being able to see. Within the group there have been only two people who were born like this, that is, congenitally blind. Once, talking to them about dreams, I was surprised that they all dreamed images, except for one or two. I asked them how they dreamed and we found out that since she had no recorded image she dreamed of voices, that was surprising and we also tell it in the play. In this last process, new things have appeared, I have a student who has been with us for about 10 years and I just realized that she wears glasses that seem to be tailored. I asked her why she wears them and she tells me that they allow her to see shadows, that helps her a lot. I have also discovered the world of low vision, there are some who have a little point of light and it has been very difficult for me to integrate them into the group because they are not completely blind. And the funny thing is that the blind discriminate against them, that’s part of the humor.

—What do you think is the main contribution of acting in blind people?

The main thing that theater as an art has given to the members of this group is to recover the confidence that is diminished by the loss of vision or any disability. Especially in a hostile environment like Lima. I think it is very different to be blind here than, for example, in Madrid. We are a very aggressive city, indifference is enormous. If the mere fact of going out into the street and blowing a horn is already terrible for us, it stuns us, imagine what it does to a blind person. We have done many exercises in the streets. You can put a blind person on the street for 15 or 20 minutes alone and there are few who put their shoulders to cross, even if the place is full. Therein lies the importance of the work, to give visibility to this group of people. If they had taken me at the age of 7 or 8 to see a play of this type, I’m telling you outside of marketing, I think I would have been less indifferent to life with people who have visual disabilities. That is the value of theater, it puts you in front of a mirror. That’s why I think something is going to change in the people who go to see the play. Let’s get at least a little more empathy.