"We've been told 700 times that we're useless."

BarcelonaThere's an apartment on Barcelona's Gran Vía where you can't help but feel like it's a theater. "So you say to me: 'Candela, scrub the dishes!' Come on, tell me, tell me!" Andrea Álvarez asks Jordi Galià, taking him by the elbow. In the deep, sinister voice of the Innocent—one of the least innocent characters in the show—Galià bellows: "Candela, scrub the dishes!" And Álvarez takes the lead to continue stretching the scene. They imagine they're in the bar of Santa Aurora de la Piedad, the setting for Clàudia Cedó's latest play, Fantastic Ramon, which premieres on April 2nd at the Fabià Puigserver Hall of the Teatre Lliure and will run until May 4th. But they're actually in the dining room of the Barcelona apartment that, for the past few weeks, has become their home.

The production company is made up of eleven actors, six of them with disabilities. Five of them live far from Barcelona, and to facilitate the creative process, the Lliure has provided them with housing in the city. The situation isn't too different from that of companies from outside Catalonia that perform at the theater. "The adaptability of the production isn't just about making the theater accessible, but also ensuring they have adapted accommodations and 24-hour support," explains Anna del Barrio, from Escenarios Especiales. Since moving in on February 17th, they've been performing scripts in the apartment in the mornings and rehearsing in the afternoons, from three in the afternoon until nine at night. "If I had to travel home by train every day, in a wheelchair, it would be exhausting," says one of the actors in the play, Marc Buxaderas, who lives in Aguilar de Segarra.

Cedó has surrounded himself with a good part of the team of Sugar mother (apart from Álvarez and Buxaderas, Mercè Méndez and Judit Pardàs also return to the stage) and has added new performers: Jordi Galià, Francesc Ferrer, Anna Moliner, Xicu Masó, Edgar Murillo, Kathy Sey, and Vanessa Segura. With the Escenarios Especiales team, they have been working for over a year to devise the story of Ramón, a radically different boy who is born in a small town. Now, the actors are in the middle of the memorization phase. "There are days when I'm doing well, others when the fuse for a particular scene has blown and there's no way I can go back," explains Buxaderas. Hers is a job of repeating and repeating, and learning to manage frustrations when a phrase doesn't come out or there's no way to retain a word.

A free therapy session

The text of Fantastic Ramon has emerged, in part, from the performers themselves. In the earliest stages of the production, the company launches a series of improvisations that eventually lead to the words of their characters. Buxaderas recalls with particular enthusiasm the monologue of his character, a priest "of order and rectitude" who rejects Ramon for his differences. In one of the rehearsals, Cedó grabbed a trench coat that symbolized Ramon and asked the performers to vent. Buxaderas took it literally. "I started telling him what I've encountered in life. We've been told 700 times that we were good for nothing, that work wasn't our thing, that we'd better stay home. It was like a free therapy session," the actor notes.

The big difference with Sugar mother Now, the performers on Escenarios Especiales don't play characters with disabilities. They've all become the voice of the people and "tell Ramón what they've been told all their lives," says Cedó. The show takes on a comedic tone and a fantastical atmosphere that distances it from its predecessor. "There's a very surreal humor; here we're more ourselves. I have the feeling that we've made a kind of Twin Peaks Catalan style," adds the director.

Of the entire company that emerged with Sugar mother (2021), Buxaderas and Álvarez are the ones who have followed the path most closely linked to professionalization. After that show, they premiered another, Angels don't have children (2021), and were part of the short film Of sugarBuxaderas also has a previous monologue entitled Spacticity, which can be seen in June at La Villarroel. Hers is a story of persistence and determination, of ignoring public opinion and fighting with conviction for her calling. "I do theater because it gives me peace and lifts my soul. It makes me feel alive; it awakens a very strong feeling in me," explains Álvarez. "The best thing of all is being able to put words to the feelings we've had, and to do it on stages like the Teatre Lliure, not in small rooms with special conditions," adds Buxaderas.

In the rehearsal room, Cedó passes out notes from the previous day while the performers, in a circle, discuss how they sounded. "It's good that you're crying like you did the other day, Jordi," the director emphasizes, and Galià explains: "The first time I felt like crying, thinking it was real blood. But now I'm doing better." A few minutes later, Xicu Masó and Judit Pardàs review one of the opening scenes of the show. "Braentí, you cogondena! What are you doing at this time of the night?" she asks. "Puri, can't you feel it?" he replies, while the rest of them mimic the scream that has awakened the town. The first time she tries it, she pretends to be so asleep that the rest of the company can't help but burst out laughing. But after two or three passes, she has already nailed the tone she must use to make it seem as if she has just woken up.

With the premiere just around the corner, the nerves are starting to show. "I have anticipatory anxiety; I suffer like a horse. But once I'm on stage, everything passes," says Buxaderas. Álvarez points out that "they're good nerves" and that for her, being able to dedicate herself to acting "is a gift." They've been putting off saying they want to be actors for a while now, because they already are and are working at one of the most important theaters in Catalonia. "We're lucky," they agree.