Stripped of its nearly 30,000-word text, William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, becomes, in the hands of director Robert Lepage and choreographer/dancer Guillaume Côté, something more akin to an expressionistic painting than a spoken word performance.

Once awakened from his melancholic brooding as the curtain goes up, Côté’s Hamlet is never still again, his inner turmoil made manifest in powerful, athletic dance, driven by John Gzowski’s relentless, evocative, recorded score. This Hamlet is all passion, all action, eschewing narrative for character-driven dance arrangements on a sparsely furnished set where Simon Rossiter’s lighting design animates ever-moving curtains and billowing silks to make a drama that keeps one very much in the present, as only dance can do.

Côté may be the central character, but he doesn’t hog all the best moves. From the opening scene with Hamlet’s friend and supporter Horatio – a brilliantly cast and frightfully nimble Natasha Poon Woon – through emotional scenes between Claudius (veteran Robert Glumbek, who shows an aptitude for classical acting) and Greta Hodgkinson’s stately yet extroverted Gertrude, to the final scenes of violent swordplay, this 100-minute, intermission-less show keeps up the momentum.

Structured as a series of scenes that open with surtitled, white-lettered phrases, à la a 1920s silent movie, this Hamlet is more pastiche than episodic, lightening the mood when the intensity builds to a breaking-point with some humorous mask work, when the players arrive to re-enact the murder of Hamlet’s father. Lepage and Côté have selected elements of Shakespeare’s play most conducive to dance interpretation, including scenes such as Ophelia’s drowning, memorably performed by Carleen Zouboules who is manipulated from underneath a turquoise watery silk, that do not occur in the stage play.

Cast as Polonius, the multi-talented Bernard Meney also performs an expanded role as  Ophelia’s father, as ever so subtly, the show touches on the oedipal elements between sons and mothers, fathers and daughters. Connor Mitton as Rosencrantz and Willem Sadler as Guildenstern likewise see much more on-stage action than Shakespeare gave them.

One hopes that this short run at Toronto’s Elgin Theatre will not be the last for this danced through Hamlet, for it is the kind of show that will only get better with each lightning performance.

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

Designed and directed by Robert Lepage

Co-designed and choreographed by Guillaume Côté

Based on the play by William Shakespeare

Produced by Ex Machina/Côté Danse/Dvoretsky Productions

At the Elgin Theatre, Toronto through April 7, 2024.

Photo of Guillaume Côté and Carleen Zouboules courtesy of Show One Productions