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Disabled students take centre stage at Copenhagen theater
2008-06-09
In a run-down working class neighbourhood of Copenhagen, a different kind of theatre has opened its doors: The "Happy Theatre", which claims to be the world's first professional theatre school for the mentally and physically disabled. Standing in the middle of a white room bathed in light from several large bay windows, professional actress Anja Owe shows Carole, Emil and other mentally handicapped students how to alter their voices for best dramatic effect. Observing the lesson, co-founder of the theatre Lars Thomsen, 31, says he is already dreaming of one day seeing some of his young proteges, all suffering from disorders ranging from autism to psychosis, on the stages of mainstream theatres and music halls. "Why shouldn't they be stars? Handicapped people can have many talents. We are just trying to bring some of them into the light," he told AFP. The school, inaugurated on April 30, today counts 11 students suffering from mental disabilities, and between five and eight physically handicapped students are set to join them in coming months. Lapping up the sun during a lunch break, French-Danish student Carole Cuisine, a mentally disabled 38-year-old with an impish, child-like face, dreamily says she hopes the school will help catapult her to stardom. "It is really hard. I want to succeed and show that we have as many qualities as others, even though we express them differently," she said. The school's co-headmaster Jesper Michelsen, a 33-year-old actor and director educated in the United States, agrees, insisting there is no reason to try to hide his students' handicaps. "It is essential that the students are conscious of their handicaps and that they do not think they are Sean Connery or Julia Roberts," he said. Instead, he said, "the handicaps contribute to something more, a different artistic expression, a different approach, and they will enrich the milieu of the theatre and the cinema." Over the next three and a half years, the students will undergo an arduous programme aimed at kick-starting their acting careers and propelling them into the limelight. Even more grueling than the curriculum however will likely be the wide range of prejudices they will encounter, "including from professional actors who do not like the idea of seeing handicapped people encroach on their territory and possibly take their work," Thomsen said. "Our students are human beings. They are part of society and they must naturally be present in the artistic and creative field just like everyone else," he insisted. Thomsen acknowledges however that he too had his share of prejudices when he began working as a volunteer on the project two and a half years ago. "I was worried that when the time came the whole thing would flop, because this is a difficult profession to learn and I am neither a pedagogue nor a specialist on their illnesses," he said. After he began working with the students however, he "discovered that it's like working with normal actors, except they can pass from one state of mind to another within the matter of a few minutes, from an adult level to the level of a nursery schooler." But that does not mean they are treated with kid gloves. The more than 200 applicants to the school were subjected to an intensive selection process including three full days of tests in front of a demanding jury. They then participated in numerous exercises that you would find in any traditional theatre school, including reciting texts and singing and miming. Only the most talented were allowed to stay on, with their home municipalities footing the bill for their schooling and expenses. Students who receive a diploma from the school will be offered a two-year internship at the "Glad Teater" (the "Happy Theatre" in English) where they will work side-by-side with other professional actors. This way they will hopefully be more integrated in the overall theatre community and avoid the stigma of working for "an isolated handicapped theatre in a distant corner of Copenhagen," Michelsen said. "Glad Teater" cooperates with theatre partners in Britain, Germany and Sweden, and is part of the media group behind TV-Glad, the first local television station in the world where mentally disabled employees make shows for a mentally disabled audience.
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