Dance-theater approach to 'Hamlet' from Robert Lepage takes 'surreal' approach to Shakespeare masterpiece

Since “Hamlet” was written around 1599-1601, Shakespeare’s piercing story of revenge has intrigued and challenged artists of all kinds, inspiring hundreds of stagings, adaptations and depictions across the worlds of theater, dance, music and visual art.

“It’s THE play in the sense that it is the great theatrical masterpiece of all times,” said famed Canadian stage director Robert Lepage. “It touches on so many things and so many themes, but it’s also because it lends itself to so many different interpretations.”

One of the latest such interpretations comes in the form of “The Tragedy of Hamlet: Prince of Denmark,” a 100-minute dance-theater work created by Lepage and Guillaume Côté, a famed principal dancer at the National Ballet of Canada and noted choreographer.

Côté Danse, a nine-member, freelance dance company that Côté founded in 2019, will present the production’s three-performance American premiere Saturday and Sunday at the Harris Theater for Music and Dance in Millennium Park.

“We live in the Netflix generation,” Côté said. “People like stories. We all want to go and see something and feel that we can dive into a narrative. For me, it’s really great to tell a story through choreography and movement in this way.”

Côté, 43, joined the National Ballet of Canada in 1998 and has been a principal dancer since 2004 and choreographic associate since 2013. He plans to retire from the company as a dancer in June 2025 but hopes to continue his dance-making role.

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Preparing for his departure, Côté founded his own eponymous company which has given more than 125 performances in some 20 cities across Canada and the United States. Many have been collaborations with groups like the electro-pop band Son Lux, which created the music for the 2022 sci-fi action film “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

As much as he loves classical ballet, Côté was keen to sink his teeth into a meatier role than those works sometimes provide and turned his sights to Hamlet, whom he portrays in this production. “At this point in my career and my life, I was kind of sick of playing the same Prince Siegfried or Prince Désiré,” he said, referring to lead roles in “Swan Lake” and “Sleeping Beauty.”

In addition, Côté believes that “Hamlet,” which centers on a prince whose obsessive belief in his own truth leads to the destruction of the entire Danish royal court, has much to say about today’s fractured politics in many countries, including the United States.

“The polarization is becoming more and more,” Côté said, “so the truth for people is becoming stronger and stronger. Everyone has their truth of what it should be, and that’s also where it becomes tricky, because there are fewer and fewer ways for people to agree on things.”

“The Tragedy of Hamlet” is Côté’s largest project to date with his own company, but he has previously created two full-length ballets for the National Ballet of Canada, including a large-scale adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s beloved novella “The Little Prince.”

Lepage, 66, has gained international fame for his innovative work in theater, opera, dance and film and his collaborations with Cirque du Soleil. In 2012, New York’s Metropolitan Opera premiered his full take on Richard Wagner’s titanic “Ring” cycle, which incorporated a controversial 90,000-pound set that came to be known as “the machine.”

“With time,” he said, “I discovered there was a lot to learn from other disciplines, I kind of indulged into all that by accident.”

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Lepage and Côté worked together previously on the National Ballet’s “Frame by Frame,” a 2018 tribute to famed film animator Norman McLaren.

Côté, who has long admired Lepage’s work in theater and opera, approached him about undertaking a “Hamlet” adaptation, and the director was pleased to return to a story which he has long esteemed. Lepage’s multidisciplinary theatrical development company, Ex Machina, and Côté Danse produced the adaptation in partnership with Dvoretsky Productions.

“You have to do it 12, 15, 20 times to try to get your head around each and every aspect of it,” Lepage said of “Hamlet.” “It’s one of these great works that resounds differently depending on when you do it and where you do it."

The two spent a great deal of time casting this work. They chose dancers who come from several kinds of stylistic backgrounds, including ballet, contemporary dance and street dance, matching those styles to the varying characters. Just as the characters speak differently in the play, they move differently in this work.

At the same time, Lepage and Côté believed it was important that the casting be age-conscious. So, they have selected dancers for some of the older characters who are retired from full-time performing but still continue to appear in projects like this.

Beginning during the COVID-19 pandemic, the two workshopped the ideas behind “The Tragedy of Hamlet” for two years before moving into full-scale development. Looking to the involved Tanztheater (dance theater) of famed German choreographer Pina Bausch, Lepage sought to guide the performers deeper into the characters than dancers usually go.

“It’s traditional,” Côté said, “in the sense that Robert kept things relatively minimal in terms of sets, in terms of the use of the stage, but his creativity is always pretty mesmerizing. So, although he kept it simple, he maximized every element and had these really wonderful ways to propel the story forward.”

At first, the work might seem a little like an “old-school” ballet, Lepage said. “Then, very quickly, it dissolves into something that is more impressionistic, more surreal and more poetic.”

Following the performances in Chicago, there are engagements of “The Tragedy of Hamlet” set for Montreal and Quebec City in Canada and Tampa, Florida, with negotiations under way for a presentation in Boston.