HAMLET

I am audience. Or at least until last night that would be how I categorise myself when attending any kind of performance or entertainment. I like being audience, whether it be live or recorded, theatre, concert, cinema, they all excite me. But in particular I love live theatre, I’ve seen a lot, from the commercial to the experimental, from truly brilliant to the truly awful. But as I have always said, you need to experience the truly awful to put in place the truly brilliant.

Last night I turned up at Theatre Royal Brighton to be audience… but I came away, not as audience, but as witness. What I experienced reaffirmed my passion for theatre, my belief in inclusivity and my faith in human nature. The reimagining of Hamlet from Peruvian theatre company Teatro La Plaza is more than brilliant, it is life affirming, joyous, heartbreaking, hilarious, stirring… there are so many words you could employ to describe this experience without ever having to mention one key factor.

And that key factor is that this Shakespeare is being performed by a cast of young persons with Down Syndrome.

So it’s perhaps the bard’s most performed and certainly best known work, helpful as this production is performed in Spanish (with helpful English subtitles), but only in part as Teatro La Plaza simply pull it apart, rip it to shreds. It’s not destructive, it works on so many levels, not only dissecting the original but making we the audience (witnesses) listen to how persons who are neurodivergent see themselves and how we see them. It’s revelatory stuff.

It’s also so beautifully put together, visually exciting, unapologetically performed, funny, moving… there I go again larding a review with adjectives of praise, but there simply not enough. This is the stuff that makes me go to theatre, makes me love theatre, and I fell in love with every person on that stage, all of whom assume different roles in the various explorations of the original text and in their own re-imagined text. Expect drama, dance, rap, physical theatre and expect Olivier and McKellen too…

To think that the whole is a response by director Chela De Ferrari  to Jaime Cruz who was an usher at the Teatro La Plaza in Lima, Peru when as artistic director he was looking for a lead for his new production of Hamlet is amazing. To learn that the production has been touring the globe to critical acclaim since 2022 comes as no surprise.

Two more chances to catch this today (11 May, 14.00 and 19.30) and I cannot recommend it more highly!

Andrew Kay

10 May

Theatre Royal Brighton

Rating: