Hamlet (review)

The audience enters the theatre. Hamlet, dressed in a suit, is seated at his father's funeral. In silence, Dan Donahue places his hand on the coffin of his dead father. It is the silence of mourning. Blackout. "Who's there?" Shakespeare's words have now been heard. Hamlet speaks to the Ghost. The Ghost gestures his reply in sign language. The Ghost is deaf. I later learn that the actor is deaf. Howie Seago as the Ghost combines American Sign Language with his own translation of the written poetry. He creates a new language to speak to Hamlet. There is not an interpreter for the other characters onstage, or the audience. Hamlet signs to the Ghost; he verbalizes most of the Ghost's lines. The oral narrative of the king's murder is conveyed through Hamlet's low resonant voice. "I am thy father's spirit." Haunting words, the only oral sounds from Seago.

Silences and sounds interweave in rhythm with Shakespeare's dialogue. In Gertrude's chamber, Hamlet silently screams when he sees the Ghost. When he signs to his father, with his hands moving, she knows he is talking to the dead king. Rap music is the rhythm of the players: lines beaten, repeated, rapped, and deleted. The player Lucianus shifts from rap to spoken word. He slows to silence. Poison is poured in the ear of the deaf brother. Hamlet verbalizes the mutiny for all to hear.

Ophelia, constantly interrupted, cannot get her words out. Alone with Hamlet, she exposes a recording device taped to her body. Silence and pain come between them as others monitor their words. He yells, performing his anger for the device, but kisses her passionately through her tears. Their silent embraces reveal the tenderness and passion that they cannot articulate because they are being taped.

A symphony of sounds and silences: Hamlet's slyly dark voice, Ophelia's utterances, the Ghost's silent signs, the players' rap performance, Gertrude's cries, and eerie music designed by Paul James Prendergast. Sharp, clashing foils as Laertes and Hamlet duel cut the quiet air onstage. "The rest is silence." The silent mourning Hamlet felt at his father's death in the opening scene comes full circle at the end. The Ghost reappears to hold and kiss Hamlet's dead body. The dead king kneels, cradling his slain son. Thunderous applause.