Blindness on stage: ‘Until disabled people can tell their own stories, we’ll always be stereotypes’

Theatre

Blindness on stage: ‘Until disabled people can tell their own stories, we’ll always be stereotypes’

From unreadable scripts to ‘cripping up’, a career in theatre with a visual impairment can be a challenge. Chloë Clarke and Douglas Walker share their successes and hopes for the future

Moving away from tropes about disabled lives … Chloë Clarke and Aron Julius in Love, Liverpool. Photograph: Brian Roberts

Moving away from tropes about disabled lives … Chloë Clarke and Aron Julius in Love, Liverpool. Photograph: Brian Roberts

Caroline Butterwick

Wed 2 Mar 2022 04.27 EST

Last modified on Wed 2 Mar 2022 07.25 EST

What is it like to navigate not only a stage but the entire theatre industry as a blind person? From the practicalities of performing to harmful preconceptions about the roles visually impaired actors can play – and how blindness itself is portrayed – there is a lot to deal with.

Actors Chloë Clarke and Douglas Walker recognise scenarios such as audition scripts printed in a font size that is too small – but they also tell me about the good practice they have experienced. Speaking over Zoom from her home in Cardiff, her guide dog resting by her feet, Clarke [...]

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