The Tragedy of Hamlet; directed by Robert Lepage with choreography by Guillaume Côté is a 100 minute long dance work based on Shakespeare’s play.  It opened last (Thursday) night at the Elgin Theatre.

Photo : Stéphane Bourgeois

Plotwise it sticks pretty close to Shakespeare.  There are cuts of course and some scenes are reordered but the basic elements are all there.  Further, it’s very much divided up into individual scenes which makes navigation easier.  Anybody reasonably familiar with the play will have little difficulty figuring out what’s going on.

The choreography is eclectic with cast members drawn from a range of classical and modern styles; from ballet to street.  They are combined remarkably effectively allowing characters to establish a distinctive “style”.  The most obviously classical element is provided by Côté himself, who plays Hamlet, and Greta Hodginkinson. who plays Gertrude.  They even have an almost textbook pas de deux about three quarters of the way in.  Ophelia is played most effectively by modern dance trained Carleen Zouboules and there is a striking and highly kinetic Horatio from Natasha Poon Woo who has an impressive contemporary dance resumé.

Photo – François Latulippe

There are some really well crafted scenes.  The opening drunken revels display some impressive ensemble work.  The death of Ophelia is staged against a white sheet with Zouboules moving sinuously at a serious height from the stage supported by unseen hands.  There’s some comic relief from Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern (Connor Mitton and Willem Sadler) and Bernard Meney as an appropriately bumbling Polonius.

There’s a hilarious version of the “play within a play” in which Côté and Poon Woo dance with their backs to us, and the stage audience, with masks on the back of their heads so we see their “faces”.  The simulated poisoning provides a moment for Robert Glumbek’s Claudius to display high emotion; a high point in a solid performance.

Photo : Stéphane Bourgeois

All this leads to a really well crafted final scene.  Claudius’ attempts to manipulate the action are clear and the duel between Laertes; extremely well danced by Lukas Malkowski, and Hamlet is spectacular with coloured streamers flowing from the rapiers and great athleticism from both dancers.  Ghosts lurk in the background.  By the end, of course, pretty much everyone except Horatio is dead and  Poon Woo dances us out with an enigmatic solo.

Photo – Sasha Onyshchenko

The set design (Vanessa Cadrin) is clever and effective, as are Michael Gianfrancesco and Monika Onoszko’s costumes, and there is atmospheric lighting from Simon Rossiter.  The only thing I really wasn’t convinced by was John Gzowski’s pre-recorded score.  It was quite repetitive and didn’t really seem to add a whole lot.  That said it wasn’t distracting or actively unpleasant.

Photo – Sasha Onyshchenko

I am most certainly not an expert on dance but this show worked for me on a variety of levels.  It’s smart, fun to watch and runs just the right length.  It’s running at the Elgin until April 7th.

Photo : Stéphane Bourgeois