This is the most important scene in Varekai to me as a disabled person and here's why
So it might just be me but throughout the show up to this point I didn't pick up at all on the fact that Icarus is disabled.
He spends the entire show (minus the finale) on the ground but I read that as stage body language showing his fear and confusion in this strange new world he's landed in as he's cowering from everything around him except La Promise.
As this scene opens, one can again see him cowering and backing away from everyone who gets too close, but then he's approached by the Crippled Angel and there's a moment between them.
Icarus is still visibly afraid, but he's recognising himself in this other person who also cannot walk and the two share a moment of solidarity as they reach for each other, despite them still being strangers.
The Angel helps this as when Icarus cowers from him, he stops approaching and crouches down to Icarus's level so he is no longer towering over him.
He's the first character besides La Promise to do so and it reads to me as though he needs this interaction as much as Icarus because despite how well he manages it, he is still disabled and the only visibly disabled individual in Varekai until Icarus arrives. Speaking from experience, that can be incredibly isolating.
From this point on in this scene, Icarus's body language shows that the Angel is the one character present whom he isn't afraid of and watches his performance with apparent awe and wonder.
He's not just watching the Angel, he's watching someone just like himself who cannot walk unassisted dance and perform on his crutches with ease, and the Angel himself seems to be showing off to Icarus specifically.
To me, the Angel's body language and the fact that he jumps into his performance right after his moment with Icarus reads as though he's providing comfort and encouragement. Almost as if he's telling him that his disability doesn't have to limit him and he's capable of more than he thinks if he can find the right support, just like his own crutches.
It might even suggest that while the creatures within Varekai are frightening, if a disabled individual can live among them then maybe they're not so dangerous. This is reflected in Icarus's performance through the rest of the show as he begins to engage more with the other characters and loses some of his fear.
And the fact that this is the first scene in which Icarus attempts to stand is incredibly powerful. It's as though through this whole show he's accepted that he can't stand or walk and hasn't once tried to do so.
But then he sees the Angel and for the first time in the whole show - this is act 2 btw - he actually tries! He collapses to the ground immediately and appears as though he expected to do so, but he tried.
And I think if it weren't for this interaction between the two, Icarus wouldn't be walking later in the hand balancing act. He walks on stage using a balancing pole as a mobility aid.
My only issue is that he does walk unassisted during the finale and I think it would be more meaningful if during the lightest and most joyous scene in the show, he was still using a mobility aid of some sort.
Ambulatory aid users exist (I am one) but this is a circus with no dialogue so he feels less like an ambulatory character and more like a "miraculously cured" character.
Aside from that - when I looked into Bill Shannon who plays the Crippled Angel, I learned that he suffered a one in 1,200 individuals disease at a young age and as a result lives with his disability.
That matters so much to me because my own disability is a result of a roughly one in 1,000 individuals disease.
I am an ambulatory cane user, as stated, and have had so many opportunities closed to me through my life because I'm no longer able to run or jump and experience chronic pain.
So seeing a performer who's disabled from a disease about as rare as my own and literally performed with the world's biggest circus is powerful and moving beyond words. 💜
