Hamlet Exacts a Princely Toll, Which Many Will Pay

"It's impossible to play a myth, and Hamlet became a myth long ago," observes Tiran, recalling his initial reservations when director Omri Nitzan offered him the role. Then only 23, Tiran thought himself too inexperienced, but Nitzan argued that immaturity itself could be fodder for the portrait.

"He was interested in telling a story about someone who is 'becoming a human being.' I thought that was very interesting," Tiran says. "I'm becoming a man, and an actor, so I can allow myself to reveal my flaws."

Jeffrey Carlson, too, is trying to sidestep the Hamlet myth as he prepares for his Shakespeare Theatre Company engagement.

"I make no bones about it: It's very intimidating," Carlson said from New York, where he lives.

All sorts of preconceptions color people's attitude toward Hamlet, Carlson explains, and an actor must make an effort to ignore such cliches. "People put 'madness' and 'intellect,' and so many adjectives on this young man," he says. "When I was reading and working on it, initially, I tried to knock all those things out of my head."

As for the burden of illustrious predecessors, the actor says, "I'm trying to think of it as I would any role, where you have to say, 'It's my turn to tackle this story.' "

Not that Carlson is easily spooked by challenges. The actor starred in the Shakespeare Theatre's 2005 "Lorenzaccio," a rarely performed French play sometimes compared to "Hamlet." And on the TV soap "All My Children," he's now playing a transgendered character negotiating a shift between identities. That latter gig might not be a bad warm-up for "Hamlet" -- Carlson points out that his television persona, Zarf, and the introspective Dane "both have their own struggle for their own truths."

One way to pry Hamlet free from his inhibiting aura is to work a radical variation on the play itself. That's what Synetic Theater did in 2002 when it launched "Hamlet . . . The Rest Is Silence," a 90-minute work directed by Tsikurishvili. The production relates the narrative through imagery -- mirrors, doors, a sword that transforms into a cross -- and movement, which unfolds to music by Georgian composer Giya Kancheli.

"When I announced the idea, everybody was telling me: Am I crazy or what? How dare I touch Shakespeare's text?" Tsikurishvili recalled in an interview at the company's Arlington base.

Ultimately, the gamble paid off. Synetic's "Hamlet" won three Helen Hayes Awards. (That success has prompted the director and his colleagues to repeat the experiment. The company's wordless "Macbeth" premieres Thursday at the Rosslyn Spectrum.)

Tsikurishvili believes that Synetic's mute productions capture Shakespeare's truth at a pre-verbal level. Asked how, as a non-speaking actor, he can convey the essence of a character who is renowned for flights of words, the actor-director takes the example of Hamlet's most famous monologue.

" 'To be or not to be' -- before he opens his mouth, I believe he has emotions going on," says Tsikurishvili, adding that Synetic's style of "visual storytelling" allows an actor to express those emotions.