In the breath between “to be” and “not to be”, and in the spaces between countless other lines penned by Shakespeare, entire lives unfold … for the most part unnoticed.
This idea, explored by Tom Stoppard decades ago in his absurdist Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, takes fascinating new shape in Genevieve Adam’s play Heratio, which is currently enjoying its world premiere at Scarborough’s Greek Theatre, courtesy of the Guild Festival Theatre. A sharp-witted and direct continuation of Hamlet, Heratio gives voice to those left standing after the tragedy’s climactic bloodbath – and in the process explores how survival and grief are an unexpected, frequently comedic canvas for both revelation and self-discovery.
As the play opens, we find ourselves in the throne room of the castle at Elsinore, which is strewn with the swords and poisoned cup used in the climactic scene of Hamlet. Upending traditional assumptions about Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy, Heratio shifts the focus to the minor characters who have outlived the King, Queen, Prince and Laertes. The first of these are castle staff working unsuccessfully to remove the bloodstains.
Servants Rue and Violet (performed with scene-stealing wit by Phoenix Fyre and Siobhan Richardson) emerge as our primary guides through the post-Hamlet landscape, with their keen observations and quick humor providing both helpful exposition and commentary on the absurdity of noble ambitions. Their humble roles grant them access to all spaces, so they see, hear and figure out almost everything – usually in advance of their ”betters”. Thus, we will learn that they each played surprising and unheralded roles in the original tragedy. And though invisible in Hamlet, they are truth-revealers in Heratio. Likewise, the nowhere-mentioned Columbine Guildenstern (Rashaana Cumberbatch) steps from her dead, dimwitted brother’s shadow to show that even the sister of a belittled fool matters – and to rewrite that fool’s family history.
Adam’s script also revives – in a minor key – the thronal power struggle that was at the heart of Hamlet. As the son of the Norwegian king slain by Hamlet’s father before the opening of Shakespeare’s play, Fortinbras (Jack Davidson) is Hamlet’s surviving counterpart. As the leader of the invading army that appears at the end of Hamlet, he is also the new possessor of the hotly-contested throne of Denmark. In Shakespeare’s original, Fortinbras is little more than a cypher – and one that, in modern productions, is sometimes eliminated, in order to speed up the play’s 3-hour run time. Heratio reveals that the cypher’s ascent to the throne was more calculated than we knew – and that the dying Hamlet’s endorsement of his rule was ill-informed.
Jack Davidson is marvelous as this mincing, preening, self-satisfied noble whose “regime change” rhetoric and squeamishness about the “Before times” of the original play do little to mask his fundamental emptiness. His scenes with a manic Philippa Domville (playing a deliciously unexpected character) crackle with the energy of two opportunists intent on writing new stories which place them at the center – with pens that drip with naked, empty ambition.
Finally, Heratio reveals that the titular role of Horatio as Hamlet’s faithful companion and chronicler was in reality something else. Horatio is literally not what he seemed to be — and a winningly confused, then increasingly confident and curious Janelle Hanna brings to life the process of becoming who they are meant to be.
Ultimately, what emerges in Heratio is more than a clever postscript to Shakespeare’s masterwork. In the situations, ruminations and actions of the various survivors, Heratio takes aim at the hollowness of ambition, the illusion of agency, and how rarely we achieve what we aim at. It mourns the tenuous nature of relationships, and how infrequently we see – really see – other people for who they are and what they want. And it shows how grief – which is externally focused on the loss of another – is actually a mirror forcing us to confront our own reflections.
Yet for all its thematic richness, the play refuses to settle into meditative contemplation. Tonally, the play is a high-wire act pitched between the twin poles of tragedy and comedy. Director Helen Juvonen is mostly successful in enabling the production to pivot – sometimes on a dime – between moments of genuine pathos and absurd, often physical humour.
The swivel-headed plot dances (literally, in a couple of great moments) between murderous intrigue and laugh-out-loud comedy, pulling jokes as frequently as these characters pull knives. And the production reaches its audacious climax in a sequence that – even while operating in its minor key with its leftover characters – does Hamlet one better by re-mixing the original’s climax and re-playing several of its speeches in a provocative stew of Shakespearean tragedy, epic swordfighting, and zombie movie clichés. This collision of high art and horror tropes doesn’t just reframe our understanding of Shakespeare’s play – it forces us to question what truly changes when new powers rise, and the margins move to the center. Are the survivors of Heratio merely creators of more of the same … or as Horatio seems to be, in the process of becoming something new?
Staged in the open air of Guild Park’s Greek Theatre, where classical architecture meets the modern cityscape, Heratio reminds us that every ending creates space for new beginnings – and that the stories of those who survive are at least as revealing than the tales of those who fall. And maybe, just maybe … something more.
Running through August 24, this bold production proves that even after 400 years, Shakespeare’s world still has secrets, insights and laughs to reveal … if we’re willing to look beyond the spotlight to find them.Tickets are available at guildfestivaltheatre.ca.
© Scott Sneddon, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2025
