There are family secrets we inherit, family stories we repeat and family wounds we spend a lifetime trying to understand. In Crazy Mama: A True Story of Love and Madness, playwright Sharon Scott Williams turns her own family history into a theatrical examination of what happens when a child grows up loving someone she cannot save.

Rubicon Theatre Company will bring the Off-Broadway premiere of Williams’ autobiographical play to 59E59 Theaters this fall, with Linda Purl taking on an extraordinary 16 characters under the direction of Anson Williams. Will Huse joins her as The Blues Man.

For television audiences, the director Anson Williams remains instantly associated with Warren “Potsie” Weber on the iconic series Happy Days, but his career behind the camera has been extensive, directing hundreds of hours of television. There is also a delightful bit of Happy Days symmetry in his collaboration with Purl: she played Ashley Pfister, Fonzie’s girlfriend, during the series’ tenth season. Decades later, the two are reunited on considerably darker territory, with Williams directing Purl through a story in which comedy and heartbreak live uncomfortably close together.

The story begins just days after Sharon’s eighth birthday. Racing home from school to beat her teenage brother, Spikey, to the final piece of birthday cake, she walks into the kitchen and finds her mother holding a knife. The sheriff takes her mother away, and a deputy gives the little girl an explanation both brutally simple and wholly inadequate: her mama is “not right in the head.”

What follows is not simply a story about mental illness. It is the story of a daughter who spends decades believing that if she loves fiercely enough, tries hard enough or somehow finds the right answer, she can rescue her mother.

That distinction gives Crazy Mama its emotional center. Mental illness affects the person living with it, but its reach rarely stops there. It changes marriages, childhoods, siblings and entire families. Williams writes from the perspective of someone who knew both the love and the fear inside that experience.

“Mental illness affects one in four people, but all-too-often individuals and families don’t speak of their experience and hide their pain,” Williams says. “I was lucky. I had my family to help me through it, but there were times we were afraid to talk about it. Crazy Mama is a story that helps lift that stigma.”

Rather than treating its subject with unrelenting solemnity, the play is laced with humor as well as pathos. That matters. Families living through extraordinary circumstances still laugh, fight over birthday cake, irritate one another and get through Tuesday. Resilience isn’t always heroic. Sometimes it is simply continuing to love someone when love cannot fix what is wrong.

For Purl, whose career has moved easily between stage, film and television, Crazy Mama presents a formidable theatrical challenge. Sixteen characters pass through a single performer, requiring not merely vocal or physical transformation but the creation of an entire family and world around one woman’s memory.

The production arrives in New York following its world premiere at Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura, California, in March 2025. Rubicon Producing Artistic Directors Karyl Lynn Burns and Jonathan Drahos now bring the work east for its Off-Broadway debut.

The creative team includes Brian Gale, who provides lighting and projection design, and Lindsay Jones on sound design. Alexandrea Hess Rodriguez serves as production stage manager, with Stephanie Coltrin as associate producer.

At its heart, Crazy Mama asks a difficult question: What happens when the person you desperately want to save is someone you do not have the power to save?

Williams lived that question. Now Linda Purl will become the 16 people who helped her tell the story.

Performances begin September 16, with opening night set for September 22. The limited engagement runs through October 18 in Theater C.

Crazy Mama runs two hours and five minutes, including intermission, with performances Tuesday through Friday at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m., and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $42, including the $2 fee, through 59E59 Theaters, by phone at 646-892-7999, or at the box office at 59 East 59th Street.

Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe of Germany joins a distinguished New York City gathering dedicated to peace, unity, leadership, human dignity, and sustainable development during UNGA Week 2026.

New York City’s UNGA Week has long carried a particular weight in the global calendar. Each September, the city becomes a meeting place for diplomacy, leadership, policy, philanthropy, business, civil society, culture, and public purpose. In 2026, that international rhythm will include the Global Conference on Peace, Unity & Sustainable Development, part of the broader Global Peace Summit 2026 program, where Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe of Germany is featured as a speaker.

The announcement places Prince Mario-Max within a gathering designed around the enduring language of peace and the practical structures that make cooperation possible. The summit’s stated focus brings together peace, unity, consciousness, human dignity, leadership, human rights, good governance, sustainable development, and global partnership. It is a wide civic vocabulary, but its setting gives it a clear frame. New York City, during the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly, is where international ambition often meets the need for workable relationships.

The event is scheduled for September 24, 2026, from 4:00 PM to 9:00 PM at MNN Manhattan in New York City. It is presented as a by-invitation-only High-Level Global Peace Summit and Distinguished Global Leadership Awards Ceremony, held during United Nations General Assembly 81 Week in recognition of the International Day of Peace.

Prince Mario-Max appears in the summit presentation as a speaker representing Germany. In the event artwork, he is presented beneath the title of the Global Conference on Peace, Unity & Sustainable Development, framed by an international globe of national flags and a formal gold circular motif. The image positions the speaker announcement within the summit’s global tone, emphasizing diplomacy, international recognition, and the convening of public figures around shared goals.

His participation adds a European royal and cultural presence to an event whose ambitions stretch across government, humanitarian work, innovation, faith leadership, sustainable development, and global business cooperation. The program is shaped as an evening of dialogue, recognition, connection, and diplomatic reception, a format that reflects the way modern international gatherings increasingly depend on both formal ceremony and purposeful networking.

A Summit Built Around Peace and Partnership

The Global Peace Summit 2026 is being developed as a distinguished international gathering for peace, leadership, and sustainable development. Its organizers describe the event as a high-level convergence of diplomats, ambassadors, policymakers, global leaders, business executives, humanitarian leaders, and peace advocates. The language is broad, but the intent is direct, to create an environment where sectors that often operate separately can meet in one room.

The summit’s central themes are especially suited to UNGA Week, when New York becomes a working stage for national delegations, international agencies, foundations, companies, cultural representatives, and advocates. In that context, the Global Peace Summit 2026 is designed to address both values and implementation. Its stated priorities include peace and conflict prevention, human rights, economic cooperation, technology, artificial intelligence, faith-based service, ethical leadership, good governance, sustainable development, environmental resilience, women’s leadership, youth leadership, and global partnerships.

That breadth gives the event a contemporary character. Peace is no longer discussed only as the absence of conflict. In the summit’s framing, it is connected to dignity, governance, inclusion, prosperity, innovation, education, and responsible leadership. This reflects a growing recognition across international circles that durable peace requires stronger institutions, informed communities, opportunity, and sustained dialogue between public and private actors.

Prince Mario-Max’s role as a speaker fits within that atmosphere of global exchange. As a public figure associated with Germany and European cultural identity, his presence contributes to the summit’s international composition. The event’s visual presentation places him alongside the language of unity and sustainable development, underscoring a message that leadership today is often expressed through visibility, convening power, and participation in global dialogue.

The summit is planned as an evening program, but its stated purpose reaches beyond a single event. It aims to build meaningful international partnerships and cooperation frameworks, mobilize investment and expertise, strengthen humanitarian and educational collaboration, and create initiatives that continue after UNGA Week. That emphasis on continuity is central to the identity of the program.

The Distinguished Global Leadership Awards Ceremony is another major element of the evening. The awards are intended to recognize individuals and organizations whose work contributes to peace, diplomacy, human rights, humanitarian service, sustainable development, good governance, education, social impact, responsible leadership, and international cooperation. Recognition, in this setting, serves as both celebration and strategic visibility, giving public attention to the kinds of service the summit seeks to advance.

The Diplomatic Reception will provide a setting for ambassadors, government representatives, international organizations, investors, business leaders, philanthropists, faith leaders, human rights advocates, academics, humanitarian organizations, civil society representatives, and invited guests to connect. In the world of international convening, receptions often matter because they create the conditions for conversation that can later become collaboration.

The organizers have presented the summit as a place where diplomacy meets business, capital meets purpose, and innovation meets humanity. The phrase captures the program’s effort to bridge traditional diplomatic language with the practical needs of investment, technology, entrepreneurship, and community development. It also reflects the modern reality that sustainable development depends on a wide field of participants.

At the center of the summit’s leadership is Ambassador Dr. Hugues Sanon, Founder and Convener of the Global Peace Summit. He is described by the event as an internationally recognized peace advocate, diplomat, humanitarian, global development leader, entrepreneur, and Global Bridge Builder. His profile includes service as Special Envoy to the United Nations for COJEP International, Vice President of the Global Organization for Sustainable Development Goals, Global Ambassador for the Foundation for a Drug-Free World, Founder of the Chautauqua County Journal and Ambassador Luxury Hotel, and Global Bridge Builder.

The strategic leadership team also includes Ambassador Jenell Lyn Kelly, RN, who serves as Co-Organizer, Summit Co-Host, and Lead Summit Planner. Her professional background combines international speaking, leadership strategy, human performance, authorship, nursing experience, entrepreneurship, and women’s empowerment. Her role gives the summit a strong planning and leadership-development dimension, particularly around resilience, transformation through adversity, and purpose-driven collaboration.

Kyle Savage serves as Co-Organizer, Main Summit Planner, and Strategic Coordinator, leading operational coordination, logistics, stakeholder communication, program development, and implementation among the organizing team and partners. His role reflects the level of structure required for an invitation-only international gathering taking place during one of New York’s busiest diplomatic periods.

Ambassador Nadine Charles is also listed as Co-Organizer, Main Summit Planner, and Strategic Coordinator. Her work supports diplomatic engagement, international outreach, stakeholder relations, partnership development, and summit coordination. In a program centered on cross-border relationship building, that kind of diplomatic and stakeholder work is essential to shaping the room.

Ambassador Jorge Royer Porras Zambrano joins the leadership team as Co-Organizer, Political Leader, Diplomat, and International Business and Political Strategy Consultant. His profile emphasizes diplomatic relations, international affairs, institutional engagement, stakeholder management, strategic alliances, and connections among governments, institutions, business leaders, investors, and global organizations.

K. Raj Singh is listed as Co-Organizer, Official Master of Ceremonies, and Summit Planner. His role includes professional program presentation, stage management, speaker introductions, guest recognition, and audience engagement. For an event balancing ceremony, diplomacy, awards, and discussion, the master of ceremonies plays an important role in maintaining continuity and tone.

Fatima Velasquez Calvache serves as Co-Organizer and Event Planner, supporting logistics, venue coordination, organizational planning, guest experience, communications, and on-site execution. Her inclusion reflects the operational detail behind the public face of a global summit, where protocol, hospitality, registration, media, and movement through the program must be carefully coordinated.

The summit’s extended coordination and strategic staff are described as supporting diplomatic outreach, VIP and guest relations, speaker coordination, communications, media, partnerships, sponsorship relations, logistics, protocol, registration, program management, production, hospitality, and on-site operations. That infrastructure is important because the success of such a gathering depends on both vision and execution.

Inspire Magazine is named as Official Media Partner and Co-Organizer. Its role centers on media visibility, communications, interviews, storytelling, leadership recognition, and international outreach for the summit and the Global Distinguished Leadership Awards. In a conference built around global leadership and public purpose, media partnership helps extend the event’s reach beyond the room.

Prince Mario-Max’s featured speaker announcement therefore sits inside a larger architecture of diplomacy, recognition, and civic aspiration. The summit’s presentation does not treat peace as a narrow subject. It situates peace within leadership, governance, economic opportunity, human rights, social impact, faith, technology, culture, and sustainability. This is the kind of integrated approach that has become increasingly visible in global forums, particularly during UNGA Week.

For Prince Mario-Max, the appearance carries the tone of ceremonial visibility and public engagement. The image presents him formally, wearing a deep red jacket and black bow tie, with a gold-framed portrait treatment and Germany identified beneath his name. The design choices are polished and diplomatic, linking personal presentation with national identity and summit purpose.

The phrase Peace, Unity & Sustainable Development is central to the announcement. Each word carries a specific civic expectation. Peace calls for dialogue and prevention. Unity calls for cooperation across identity, sector, and geography. Sustainable development calls for practical commitments that can support communities over time. Together, they establish the frame for a speaker’s contribution within a global setting.

The summit’s theme of consciousness also adds a distinctive note. In the event context, it is connected to ethical leadership, integrity, accountability, inclusion, and responsible governance. It suggests that leadership is not only a matter of institutional authority, but also of personal responsibility, awareness, and service.

Human dignity is another defining principle in the summit language. It appears alongside human rights, justice, equality, freedom, inclusion, and respect. These ideas position the event within a humanitarian and rights-based tradition, while also leaving room for discussion of education, economic opportunity, and community prosperity.

The business and investment dimension is significant as well. The summit aims to connect governments, corporations, entrepreneurs, investors, and development partners to create sustainable economic opportunities. This recognizes that diplomacy and development increasingly require private-sector engagement, particularly when addressing employment, infrastructure, innovation, technology, and resilience.

Technology and artificial intelligence are included as areas of dialogue, with an emphasis on addressing global challenges and expanding opportunity. Their presence in the program signals a forward-looking agenda. In peace and development spaces, technology is now inseparable from questions of access, ethics, education, governance, and economic participation.

Faith, humanitarian action, and social impact are also woven into the program. The summit intends to strengthen cooperation among faith communities, humanitarian organizations, civil society, and development partners. This inclusion acknowledges the role that community-based and faith-based networks often play in local resilience, conflict response, service delivery, and moral leadership.

Nature-based economy and resilience appear as another priority, linking environmental stewardship with investment, employment, and community prosperity. The wording suggests an interest in practical environmental approaches that support both ecological care and economic participation. In a global summit setting, this theme connects climate awareness with development strategy.

Youth, women, and future leadership are specifically named, with the aim of elevating young people, women, educators, and emerging changemakers as contributors to sustainable solutions. This is an important feature of the summit’s identity, because any serious conversation about long-term peace and development must include those who will carry policy, enterprise, education, and civic work into the next generation.

The evening’s experience is expected to include keynote addresses, strategic conversations on peace and governance, human rights discussions, faith and interfaith perspectives, youth and women’s engagement, cultural presentations, diplomatic dialogue, business and investment discussions, innovation and AI dialogue, networking, a diplomatic reception, and strategic partnership opportunities.

This layered format gives the summit the character of a formal international salon, with the added structure of awards and strategic convening. It is designed for conversation, but also for recognition and relationship building. In that sense, Prince Mario-Max’s speaker role contributes to a program that values public presence as part of international bridge building.

New York City is central to the story. During UNGA Week, the city operates as a diplomatic crossroads. The Global Peace Summit 2026 draws from that unique concentration of global attention, placing its program within a week when leaders, institutions, and advocates are already gathered around the concerns of international cooperation.

The summit’s private invitation format gives the evening a selective quality. Guests are asked to confirm attendance and provide professional listing details for the official guest list. Attendance is limited, and invitations are identified as non-transferable unless approved by the organizing committee. This kind of structure helps preserve the intended composition of the room.

The inclusion of Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe in the speaker lineup adds a recognizable name to the summit’s international presentation. It also reinforces the event’s interest in cultural diplomacy, leadership visibility, and dialogue across regions. Germany’s presence, as marked in the announcement, contributes to the summit’s global character.

The broader tone of the summit is celebratory, but its subjects remain serious. Peace, rights, governance, development, and partnership are demanding fields. They require institutional patience, personal commitment, and sustained attention. The summit’s program suggests an effort to gather people who can bring influence, expertise, resources, and visibility to those areas.

In a luxury-culture context, the significance of the event lies in its blending of ceremony and purpose. The awards, diplomatic reception, formal speaker presentation, and high-level guest environment create an atmosphere of prestige. The agenda gives that prestige a civic direction, placing elegance in service of leadership, recognition, and global cooperation.

Prince Mario-Max’s participation will be read within that refined framework. He is presented as part of an international constellation of speakers and leaders whose presence supports the event’s message of unity. The visual identity of the announcement, with its flag globe and formal portrait, speaks to internationalism and ceremonial polish.

The Global Peace Summit 2026 ultimately positions itself as an occasion for leaders to move from dialogue toward relationships and from relationships toward meaningful action. That progression is central to the event’s vision. It recognizes that lasting impact often begins through trusted contact, shared values, and a carefully organized setting where people are able to meet with purpose.

For the organizers, the task is to create more than an impressive evening. The ambition is to develop a growing international coalition that includes governments, permanent missions, international organizations, businesses, investors, philanthropists, foundations, universities, faith organizations, humanitarian groups, human rights organizations, civil society, youth and women’s networks, innovators, media, and global advocates.

For attendees, the summit offers entry into a room shaped by diplomacy, leadership, social impact, and sustainable development. For honorees, it offers recognition tied to service and contribution. For speakers, including Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe, it offers a platform aligned with the language of peace, dignity, responsibility, and international partnership.

As UNGA Week 2026 approaches, the Global Conference on Peace, Unity & Sustainable Development stands as part of New York City’s wider season of global convening. With Prince Mario-Max of Germany announced as a speaker, the event adds another international voice to an evening designed around cooperation, recognition, and the continuing work of building a more peaceful and sustainable world.

Half An Evening may have been the title of David Rasche’s 54 Below performance last night, but after hearing this famed television and film actor perform his clever, witty, poignant, and very funny original songs, I’m sure the audience was left wanting the other half!

David has a charming, deceptively self-deprecating manner—and an ingenious talent for creating both words and music. Eda and I hadn’t seen him in many years, not since he was our neighbor in Hillsdale, N.Y. Back then, when we spotted him on a tractor tending to his crops, we assumed he was simply the farmer down the road. Then, one day, he came over and asked me to play the piano while he sang an original song he was working on. It was our first glimpse of the remarkable musical talent behind the seemingly unassuming “farmer” next door.

Knowing David’s clever, self-deprecating sense of humor, I suspect that if he were to review his own show last night, it might sound something like this. The following is my paraphrase of the 54 Below promotion, which I can only assume he wrote himself.

“David Rasche, star of HBO’s “Succession” and ABC’s “Sledge Hammer!” returned to 54 Below for his second outing at the legendary club. David’s show was a delightful evening of painful memories and personal insults that were tied together with a collection of original songs that he originally wrote himself and were written by him originally. Some of those songs have never before been sung in public, perhaps for good reason. Some were love songs, some comedic, some were bittersweet, and some were just bitter. He was not above a cheap joke, and nothing was beneath him. Songs included the Bossa nova favorite “Sand Up in My Crack,” the enchanting jazz waltz, “I Wish I was Married to Your Wife,” the historic actor/prison/chaingang song, “Never Going to Work Again,” and not many more. The songs were musical, and short enough to accommodate the most limited attention span. Someone else played the piano.. luckily. The show was just long enough that exactly when you were thinking, “It’s time to go,” the last song had ended. “Thank God, David Rasche did a show!” someone was heard to say.

It was a celeb filled audience with many actors who have appeared with David in Films and on TV and they gave him a standing ovation.  Spotted in my immediate vicinity were Christine Ebersole, Paul Kreppel, Murphy Cross, Lee Roy Reams, and Lorna Dallas-Brown.

Excellent musical arrangements and band which consisted of: Music Director Isaac Harlan, Jerry DeVore, bass, Alphonso Horne, trumpet, Sungwon Kim, Guitar, Brian Krock, sax, Gary Schreiner, harmonica and Joe Spinelli, drums.  The show was directed by  Michael Schiralli.

DAVID RACHE

54 BELOW

DAVID RACHE

DAVID RACHE

DAVID RACHE

DAVID RASCHE

DAVID RASCHE

DAVID RASCHE

LEE ROY REAMS, RICHARD HILLMAN, LORNA DALLAS-BROWN

54 BELOW

DamonHorowitz with-Truman Gaudoin, Desiree Baxter, Jim Pratzon and Tyler Moss Photo by Valerie Terranova

There is a provocative idea buried inside Becoming Hamlet, Damon Horowitz’s new adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy at the Five Angels Theater: We are Hamlet. I am Hamlet. You are Hamlet. Horowitz is Hamlet. Director Sybille Bruun invites the audience not simply to observe Shakespeare’s tortured prince but to inhabit him, speaking his words and, for those who choose, stepping directly into the action. The production describes the audience as a “central dramatic presence,” with participation optional and designated non-participatory seating available, which I took.

It is an intriguing concept. I also found it pretentious. Horowitz, who serves as the production’s “Hamlet Guide,” has an unusual résumé for an Off-Broadway adaptor and performer. He previously served as Google’s in-house philosopher, has appeared on the TED mainstage and has taught at Columbia, Stanford and San Quentin State Prison. That philosophical impulse is all over Becoming Hamlet. The production is less interested in presenting Hamlet than in deconstructing him, turning Shakespeare’s tragedy into an exploration of whether Hamlet’s grief, indecision, anger, fear and eventual acceptance are somehow universal. Is this who we all are? Becoming Hamlet thinks so. I am not convinced.

The bones of the story remain familiar. Hamlet’s uncle Claudius (David H. Littleton) has murdered Hamlet’s father, seized the throne and married his widowed sister-in-law Gertrude, played here by an emotionally cold Désirée Baxter. Claudius wants Hamlet to remain at court, accept the new family structure, continue his relationship with Ophelia (a lackluster Judith Feingold) and settle into his place as the king’s new son. In other words: I have the power now, and someday, if you behave yourself, perhaps you will too.

Damon Horowitz, an audience member, and Equiano Mosieri Photo by Valerie Terranova

Then Hamlet’s dead father returns. Equiano Mosieri makes a genuinely ghoulish Ghost, bringing the production one of its strongest jolts of theatricality as the murdered king demands revenge. From there, Hamlet’s emotional trajectory remains Shakespeare’s: profound grief gives way to despair, obsessive questioning and paralysis before arriving at something resembling calm acceptance in the face of death.

The production’s central conceit is that Horowitz does not carry that journey alone. We do. Audience members who consent to participate are handed cards containing Shakespeare’s lines and invited to speak them from their seats. Those choosing active participation can become even more directly involved, while four facilitators guide the audience through the evening. The company explicitly describes the audience as Hamlet and the professional actors as scene partners responding to whatever the participants bring to the performance.

Here is where Becoming Hamlet lost me. I do not particularly like participating in my theatre. I want the actors to make me think, feel, question and reconsider; I don’t need to be handed a line to accomplish that. More importantly, the device repeatedly interferes with the dramatic momentum. Shakespeare’s language requires thought, breath, intention and emotional connection. Passing Hamlet among audience members inevitably means passing him among people with wildly different abilities to deliver that language. One moment has theatrical weight; the next sounds like somebody reading from a card.

The result is a production constantly operating at different levels of performance. Just as one of the professional actors begins digging into a scene, Hamlet can suddenly become an audience member concentrating primarily on getting the words out correctly. The emotional temperature drops, the rhythm changes and the actors have to begin rebuilding what has just been interrupted.

That is not the audience’s fault. It is the structural problem created by the concept.

The irony is that a production designed to get us deeper inside Hamlet sometimes kept me farther away from him. Rather than becoming immersed in one man’s increasingly desperate psychological state, I became conscious of the theatrical mechanism required to make all of us that man. I saw the facilitators facilitating. I saw the participation being organized. I saw the concept. I wanted to see Hamlet.

There are moments when the conceit suggests something genuinely interesting. Hearing the same character voiced by different people can underline the universality of grief and indecision, and I can see Becoming Hamlet being particularly effective for a high school or college audience encountering the play seriously for the first time. Shakespeare can become intimidating when his language is placed behind glass and treated as sacred literature. Asking young people to put the words into their own mouths could break that barrier beautifully.

As theatre for me, however, it became somewhat sing-song and overly intellectualized. Hamlet already contains one of the greatest examinations of consciousness ever written. Shakespeare does not need much help making us recognize ourselves in the prince. That is precisely why the play has survived for more than four centuries.

Claudius (David H. Littleton), (Addy Jenkins) and an audience member Photo by Valerie Terranova

The supporting actors are therefore placed in an unusual and not always enviable position. Littleton’s Claudius understands the seductiveness of authority, while Baxter keeps Gertrude emotionally protected, a woman whose choices remain deliberately difficult to penetrate. Feingold’s Ophelia has the challenge of establishing intimacy with a Hamlet who is, by design, never entirely one person. Steven Lamont brings welcome force to Laertes, while Truman Gaudoin as Guildencrantz and the rest of the ensemble move in and out of a theatrical world whose center is constantly changing.

Visually, the production fares better. Amit Gajwani’s costumes manage to feel contemporary while keeping the characters connected to Shakespeare’s world, which also helps enormously in keeping everyone straight. Maryam Sweirki’s lighting knows exactly where our eyes should go, while Yijun Yang’s minimalist scenic design uses reflective Mylar to return our own images to us. It is a clever extension of the evening’s thesis: wherever we look for Hamlet, eventually we encounter ourselves. Marlon Feld’s original music is rather brilliant, giving the production a cinematic scope that the small physical space cannot provide.

That brings me back to the question underneath the entire evening. Are we all Hamlet? We certainly know grief. We know betrayal, indecision, anger, desire, paralysis and the terror of making a choice whose consequences cannot be undone. In that sense, Shakespeare settled the argument centuries ago. We recognize Hamlet because some part of him already belongs to us. Recognizing Hamlet is not the same thing as being Hamlet.

That distinction matters. Theatre allows us to enter another human being’s consciousness without requiring us literally to become that person. That mysterious transaction between actor and audience is one of the things theatre does better than almost any other art form. I don’t need to speak Hamlet’s words to feel his grief. I need an actor capable of speaking them so truthfully that, for an instant, I recognize his grief as my own.

Becoming Hamlet attempts to collapse the distance between spectator and character. For some audiences, particularly those who love participatory theatre, that may be exactly what makes the evening exciting. For me, eliminating that distance also eliminated some of the dramatic depth.

At least Horowitz and Bruun have done something merciful that generations of Hamlet directors have struggled to accomplish: the evening runs approximately 100 minutes, without an intermission, rather than the three-plus hours a relatively complete Hamlet can demand. Strangely though, it still felt longer than it should.

There is intelligence behind Becoming Hamlet, and there is certainly ambition. I simply found its central device more gimmick than revelation. When the audience becomes Hamlet, the production gains participation but loses the sustained psychological journey that makes Hamlet such an extraordinary role in the first place.

To participate or not to participate?  For me, the answer was easy. I would rather watch a great Hamlet become Hamlet than be told that Hamlet is me.

Becoming Hamlet:  Five Angels Theater, 789 Tenth Avenue at 52nd Street. Presented by The Directors Company. Performances through October 3.