INTERNATIONAL THEATER

HAMLET

Chela De Ferrari

Teatro La Plaza (Peru) 

New York Premiere

July 19 & 20, 8 pm, PS21 Pavilion Theater

Hamlet, boldly reimagined by Chela De Ferrari, founding artistic director of Peru’s Teatro La Plaza, adapts Shakespeare’s classic for a group of young actors with Down syndrome. Inspired by De Ferrari’s conversation with Jaime Cruz, an usher who revealed that his ambition was to act in the theater’s productions, she developed the script over months of rehearsal with the eight cast members. In this novel version of Hamlet, the actors speak of their desires and frustrations about their lives, which have historically been devalued and ignored by a society that often treats them as marginal or invisible. They interweave deeply personal reflections with the original text to invest new meaning in the play’s central existential question, “To be or not to be?” They ask, “How can we exist in a world that ignores and excludes us?”

Blending contemporary concerns, classical drama, pop music, dance, and wry humor, Teatro La Plaza’s Hamlet offers an eye-opening and provocative look at questions of inclusion and discrimination – making us question our own perceptions and values, and confronting us with how we perceive difference and disability in a world where the value of human beings is measured against unrealistic standards of efficiency, productivity, and beauty.

Copresented with the 2024 International Hispanic Theater Festival of Miami