What's on the other side of the wall?

My theatre has always aimed to give a voice to those who have no voice. Thus, in the past, the protagonists of my plays have been forgotten poets, abandoned elderly people, lonely soldiers, men in search of love.

In our first conversations with Ricardo Carriço, we immediately realized that people with motor disabilities were in exactly these conditions. In the conversations we had with people with disabilities, we realized that it was very difficult for them to find partners and raise awareness in the press and public opinion about their reality.

A light bulb went off in Ricardo's and my head: let's bring these lives to the stage. Let's hopefully show the day-to-day lives of these people and how small changes in our behavior can make their lives much easier.

In the writing and rehearsal process, we realized that we all have something that paralyzes us – a trauma, a fear, a memory – from then on, the play “ Do outro lado do muro ” stopped being just “theirs” to become “ours” and that was all we wanted.

The accomplices we found to bring this story of overcoming to life were the best. Baltasar Marçal, bringing Rodrigo to life before the accident, full of dreams and ambitions, is the ideal counterpoint to Rodrigo after the accident, represented by what seems to me to have been the greatest challenge of Ricardo Carriço's career: acting without movement, without being able to anchor himself in any movement, without any head movement, without any hand triggering any emotion.

Rita Ribeiro, as the mother of this character in two very different moments, creates a woman full of nuances that place her at times closer to her young son, at times closer to her adult son. Rita is completely involved in this character and there is not a day that the show does not end with tears in the eyes of some spectators and smiles on the lips of others. Everyone was moved, everyone laughed out loud at some of the situations, everyone sang along to the songs. Everyone... but the most comforting thing of all is the reaction that people with disabilities have had. Some have confessed to us that they have made peace with their parents after seeing the play, everyone thanks us for understanding so well the phases they go through, everyone thanks us for not treating them like poor little things, nor like superheroes.

We treat them only for who they are, for who we are. And because we know that the world is much better for everyone when it is better for those who have suffered some setback in life.

It is a show full of joy, full of hope, full of the love that brings us up on stage every night to say that they exist, that we exist. Everyone! Everyone! Everyone!

After a triumphant season at the Teatro Variedades, with great reviews and the vibrant energy of the audience, we are preparing to revive the play at the Auditorium of the Casino Estoril, as there were so many requests for us to revive it. It will be with double enthusiasm that from 19 to 29 June we will be at the Casino to tell the story of this Rodrigo, this mother. This story that is also mine, the story of the actors. This story that is also yours!