Brighton Festival 2025
Hamlet
Teatro La Plaza
Genre: Adaptation, Classical and Shakespeare, Disability Arts, International
Venue: Theatre Royal Brighton
Festival: Brighton Festival
Low Down
From the startling opening sequence to its joyfully raucous finale, Hamlet triumphantly declares its principles and intention.
Written and directed by: Chela De Ferrari.
Direction and Associate Dramaturgy: Jonathan Oliveros, Claudia Tangoa and Luis Alberto León.
Cast: Octavio Bernaza, Jaime Cruz, Lucas Demarchi, Manuel Garcia, Diana Gutierrez, Cristina Leon Barandiaran, Ximena Rodriguez and Alvaro Toledo.
Review
“Any similarity to reality is purely accidental” says our narrator at the start of Teatro La Plaza’s astonishing transformation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It’s a play that opens itself to reinterpretation and this fine ensemble of actors wilfully deconstruct it to serve their stories, experiences and message.
Shakespeare’s play is a study of melancholy, revenge, repressed love and parental attachment. The actors here, who have Down’s Syndrome, focus in on the themes most important to their experience – being infantilised by society and their parents, being viewed as different, and how finding romantic or sexual partners is fraught and tricky.
Writer/director Chela De Ferrari’s theatrically-meta approach invites the cast to celebrate and own their research and process, to control the action, shape the scenes, be themselves. And boy do they deliver. Switching roles, interacting with film, shifting the scenery and supporting each other throughout a technically complex, text-heavy play without missing a beat. Each takes a shot at playing Hamlet. Jaim Cruz, posing against the iconic scene of Laurence Olivier reclining awkwardly on a rock, is fiercely told to “Be less Larry” and bring more of himself to the role. Cue big rap sequence where the politics of being ‘othered’ are made clear.
Fragmentary in form, certain topics recur and there’s a strong focus on romantic love and relationships. In one of the most moving scenes, Ximena Rodriguez, Diana Gutierrez and Cristina Leon (who also narrates) are Ophelias, sharing and ultimately drowning their dreams.
Fun is had with the play within the play and some skilfully managed audience involvement. Witty liberties are taken with the text “Something is rotten in the state of Washington” and references to place – fish and chips, gin & tonic – cleverly woven in.
Circling back on itself, perhaps a little too often, the show’s messages hit home through the total commitment of each performer. Here’s Lucas Demarchi, an effervescent dancer and thoughtful gravedigger, and Octavio Bernaza’s Claudius, grandstanding from the stalls, a towering presence with a wicked glint in his eyes.
From the startling opening sequence to its joyfully raucous finale, Hamlet triumphantly declares its principles and intention. The UK has many fine learning disabled theatre groups making great work, and several actors who’ve broken through to TV and film, but nothing of this scale, ambition or I suspect, level of funding. Teatro La Plaza’s Hamlet has been touring internationally since 2022, showing the world what theatre can be. Brighton is lucky to have it.
