How can an actor make an audience care about a character who speaks with a ghost, is consumed by his mother’s remarriage, helps drive the woman he loves toward suicide, and kills three men—two of them unarmed? ‘Becoming Hamlet’ answers this by removing the distance between spectator and prince: the audience does not merely observe Hamlet’s turmoil but assumes its many dimensions.
The Circular Theatre presents Damon Horowitz’s adaptation, Becoming Hamlet. A philosopher and educator, Horowitz reimagines Hamlet as an event in which audience members take on the title role. Director and educator Sybille Bruun, who has taught Shakespeare and directed his plays, shapes the production around audience participation, Shakespeare’s text, and direct interaction with professional actors.
Before the performance begins, volunteers receive lines and roles to play. Becoming Hamlet opens with Hamlet’s instructions to the players, recited in turn by actors and the facilitators. Then comes the production’s central invitation: all of us are Hamlet, and whatever we feel that night reaches us through him.
Damon Horowitz guides the audience through Hamlet’s conflict, inviting spectators to explore the forces shaping the prince. Hamlet struggles with justice and moral balance, while David H. Littleton’s Claudius fights to preserve his power, drawing the audience into their confrontation. Littleton, whose credits range from The Public Theater to Disney, is especially compelling in the “O, my offence is rank” soliloquy. As Claudius suppresses his guilt, Hamlet considers killing him. Horowitz recites the lines while guiding an audience member with a dagger through Hamlet’s described actions, turning thought into visible choice. Actor and classical singer Desiree Baxter gives Gertrude genuine concern for Hamlet, even as she chooses Claudius over her son. The closet scene makes Hamlet’s anger especially understandable.
Jim Pratzon has played 15 Shakespearean characters, and his Polonius offers a revealing contrast to Hamlet: where the prince searches for truth, Polonius relies on surveillance. By using his daughter to spy on Hamlet, he intensifies the pressure closing in on both young people. Ophelia’s best-known moment is her mad scene, which actor and director Judith Marian Feingold plays brilliantly. Yet the image that most powerfully conveys Hamlet’s growing isolation comes in the graveyard, when Gertrude places a flower on Ophelia’s body and the gravedigger leads Ophelia away. Steven Lamont’s Laertes further highlights Hamlet’s hesitation. Both men are determined to avenge murdered fathers, but Laertes rushes toward violence while Hamlet stalls.
Guildenkrantz combines Guildenstern and Rosencrantz into a single character, portrayed by London-based Truman Gaudoin. In one revealing exchange, Hamlet asks Guildenkrantz to play a recorder. Before handing it over, however, he gives it to an audience member, who plays it. When Guildenkrantz protests that he does not know how, Hamlet exposes the irony: this man thinks he can play Hamlet, yet he cannot even play the recorder. The seemingly minor scene becomes a sharp expression of Hamlet’s resistance to manipulation. Tyler Moss, a SUNY Purchase alumnus with experience in numerous Shakespearean roles, brings warmth to Horatio, Hamlet’s closest friend. As Hamlet sinks deeper into his obsessive pursuit of revenge, he also moves away from Horatio. Equiano Mosieri plays both the ghost and the gravedigger. His ghost persuasively urges Hamlet toward revenge, while his gravedigger embraces the play’s dark comedy. The Yorick speech marks a turning point: Hamlet remains silent as audience members deliver the lines, transforming the passage into a genuinely internal monologue.
The facilitators are essential to Becoming Hamlet. They guide audience members onstage, feed them lines, provide sound effects, and become players themselves. Addy Paul Jenkins makes their Off-Broadway debut; Tristan Andre brings experience from UNC Chapel Hill, Off-Broadway, and regional productions; Emily Jackoway is a New York City–based actor; and Sevans Martinez has worked on stage and television. Together, the four keep the participation focused and fluid, ensuring that audience members can speak the text and interact directly with the cast without disrupting the production’s momentum.
Becoming Hamlet runs about 100 minutes without intermission, but its true achievement lies in drawing spectators into Hamlet’s inner world. Rather than observing the prince from a safe distance, the audience shares his uncertainty, anger, and quest for justice. Seating options allow spectators to choose their level of participation. By preserving Shakespeare’s language while reshaping the relationship between actors and audience, Horowitz creates more than an inventive staging of Hamlet: he offers a rare chance to understand why Hamlet matters by making us part of the question.
