SHAKESPEARE LOSES SIGHT

Is Hamlet blind-well, at least in a psychological or emotional sense? It sounds like a reasonable argument that could follow from the logic of Harold Bloom or maybe a high school sophomore reading the Cliff Notes. Just look at how Hamlet doesn't respond to Ophelia, or his nonchalance after killing Polonius. Whether talking to himself or a skull, he says it is better to die so you can be in a sightless state of no dreams. Or in his exact words, "By a sleep to say we end the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks that flash is heir to?" For the 80,000th Off-Off-Broadway revival of Hamlet, Theater By the Blind will produce the play with their regular troupe, which includes blind and visually impaired actors. Whether inspired by old-time Elizabethan style or a low budget, it's staged with only six performers. For example, Ophelia is also playing Rosencrantz and Horatio, and Claudius will also play Hamlet's father. "The play's very right for blind actors and blind audiences," Ike Schambelan, the company's leader and the play's director says. "It's all verbal. You can do anything you want in Shakespeare, but you do it on the word. Not in the pauses, like in a Pinter play, and not on spectacle. It sounds kind of arrogant, but we're doing it right. People tell me it's the clearest Shakespeare they've ever seen."

Through June 11. Theater 5, 311 W. 43rd St., 5th Fl. (betw. 9th & 10th Aves.), 212-868-4444; $35.