Anyone attempting to spin Shakespeare’s tragedy of the depressed Danish prince into a joyful experience does so at their peril. Peruvian theatre company Teatro La Plaza’s free interpretation takes on the twofold job of centering the stories of those with Down’s syndrome within the bigger drama.
Written and directed by Chela De Ferrari, the result is upbeat and oozes charm, humour and imagination.
It is and it isn’t Shakespeare’s play, though; selected scenes play out with verve and imagination but the overall story is loosely strung and opaque, a comment on Shakespeare’s Hamlet – and our world – rather than an enactment of it.
As part of the Edinburgh international festival lineup, and performed in Spanish with surtitles, a central analogy between the outsider prince and the social status of someone living with Down’s is an effective one. There is a deliberate mashup of the actors’ lives and the characters they play, and the commentaries on how our world treats those with disabilities renders it a rotten state, of sorts.
There is no Laertes but Polonius’ famously pompous advice is given in earnest to his daughter, Ophelia (Ximena Rodríguez), about being “special” when she does not want to be because of how she is received in an ableist society, while the usurping King Claudius tells his subjects that Hamlet cannot inherit the throne due to his “terrible condition”.
On top of this are meta-theatrical layers that engage with the lore of the play itself and how to make canonical works you own. Sometimes this pays off – there is one riff which sets the recorded film of Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet against this troupe’s rephrased rap of “To be or not to be” (brilliantly led by Álvaro Toledo), which is the soliloquy that inspired this production as a whole.
It is as playful as it is intellectual, but sometimes you are dazzled by the reconceptualised invention rather than engaged by the story so that it becomes a deconstructed Hamlet. A narrator occasionally summarises the plot, but it is ambling in its pace and so broad in its ideas that the focus becomes diffuse.
What is winning, and reels you back in, is the charisma of its exceptional eight-strong cast, who all have Down’s. They switch between parts, playing the character of Hamlet interchangeably (beginning with Jaime Cruz), while three actors are Ophelia at one point. They bring such fiery energy that it becomes incredibly infectious as a production.
Lighting (by Jesus Reyes) and choreography (by Mirella Carbone) creates good effects in interludes of music and movement. A back-screen brings filmed footage, live and recorded, and melds with on-stage action although no one effect is sustained so, for example, the theme of surveillance (from the original play) is brought up but not built upon.
It comes most alive in its joy and the bloodbath of the end is foregone in lieu of a happy ending, the audience invited to the stage to dance with the cast, which is a lovely experience even to watch. Hamlet as life-affirming drama about community? It works.