Dublin Theatre Festival: Pride, defiance and rap in this irresistible staging of Hamlet 

Peruvian company Teatro La Plaza has a freewheeling, playful, deconstruction of the Shakespeare classic — it's on at the O'Reilly Theatre in Dublin

Jaime Cruz of Teatro La Plaza's HAMLET, where a group of actors with Down syndrome take to the stage to share their desires and frustrations through a new version of Hamlet, weaving together Shakespeare’s text and the actors’ lived experiences.

Hamlet

O’Reilly Theatre

★★★★☆

The Dublin Theatre Festival has found the perfect opening night show here, from the Peruvian company Teatro La Plaza. 

Their freewheeling, playful deconstruction on Hamlet, performed by actors with Down syndrome, is a joyous and profound celebration of art and life, and a reminder, fitting for the start of any festival, of why theatre matters, and to whom it matters.

The genius of Chela De Ferrari and her cast’s loose adaptation is to intertwine themes and scenes from Hamlet, and indeed other snatches of Shakespeare, with what we call nowadays the lived experience of its actors. 

Ximena Rodriguez and Octavio Bernaza at Teatro La Plaza's HAMLET.

Thus, the “Get thee to a nunnery” scene becomes a searing tirade from Hamlet to Ophelia about exclusion and disability, intimacy and autonomy. 

It continues backstage via a screen projection of grainy videocamera footage, becoming all the more personal and raw and touching.

With “To be or not to be,” we are invited to consider the constrained life of the actors here, in an ableist world. Moments like this abound in this dynamic, profound and ultimately celebratory production.

Meanwhile, the old actors' question of who gets to play Hamlet is both broadened and lampooned. 

Lucas Demarchi of Teatro La Plaza's HAMLET, where a group of actors with Down syndrome take to the stage to share their desires and frustrations through a new version of Hamlet, weaving together Shakespeare’s text and the actors’ lived experiences.

There’s a hilarious mock interview with Ian McKellen, and an Olivier monologue of punctured pomposity. 

All of this points to a wider question: who gets to be included, not just on the stage, but in life itself. On whose terms?

That idea resonates playfully during Hamlet’s staging of The Mousetrap, his play-within-a-play to “catch the conscience of the king”. 

Here, audience members are asked to join the cast, while the actors with Down syndrome discuss the tricky problem of including “neurotypical” actors in their carefully honed production. 

It’s a delightful inversion of the skewed power dynamics so poignantly described throughout.

Ximena Rodriguez and Octavio Bernaza at Teatro La Plaza's HAMLET.

This Hamlet is no maudlin showcase of lives 'limited' by an extra chromosome. Far from it. 

There is a pride and defiance conveyed by the actors’ command and confidence, by an inspired rap number, and a two-fingers-to-the-world punk song.

It doesn’t always work, getting a tad too loose and unfocused at times. A knowledge of the full play (surely something that can still be assumed?) would almost seem a necessity. 

But for all that, it’s irresistible, right up to a curtain call for the ages that has plenty of audience members running to the stage to join in the dancing.

To go or not to go? That is no question at all: just go.

• Ends Saturday