I’ve just seen Genevieve Adam’s Heratio, a new play that picks up from where Hamlet ended.

It’s another of the scripts that build on Shakespeare, with much of the fun coming if you know the original, as in Stoppard’s Rosenkrantz & Guildenstern are Dead. It’s fertile material, as I recall earlier this summer when I interviewed Kenzia Dalie (creator of a show called Clowns Reading Shakespeare) or last year’s 1939 (a work by Jani Lauzon and Kaitlyn Riordan using children in a residential school playing Shakespeare as a powerful microcosm for exploration). The currency of Shakespeare in our culture makes him a perfect departure point, and clearly he’s not close to being exhausted, with lots still to show us in 2025 and beyond.

I just want to quickly mention the venue, in passing. I was married there in 1989, a place that is surely one of the most beautiful places to stroll or to watch a play in the Toronto area. Today we were outside near the lake, breezes cooling us on what had been a stifling hot day, as birds swirled overhead, passersby sometimes making noise that never really distracted us from this astounding space and the work being presented.

It’s actually even more beautiful than what you see in my pictures. The actors were right in front of us, delightfully intimate in this tiny space.

Adams’ Heratio is a curious mix that gets to the point quite quickly, combining moments of gravitas & physical comedy, juxtaposing noble personages with the servants who are usually under the radar. It may be an advantage not to know the original, if that means one can arrive without stipulations or requirements of the plot or language. Best to just go with it.

Director Helen Juvonen’s program note calls it a comedy which is a useful guidepost for those who worry about such things. I found myself wondering –given that this is a new work–whether they knew how they wanted to finish the play when they started, perhaps working back from the ending. I do like how it ends, and sorry I won’t tell you more.

Every one of the six members of the cast had powerful moments.

We begin with Violet (Siobhan Richardson) and Rue (Phoenix Fyre), a pair of servants charged with exposition & clean up orienting us into the world of Elsinore immediately after the bloody end of Hamlet, as they scrub all the blood off the floor. They’re not to be under-estimated.

Horatio (Janelle Hanna) has a huge challenge in his/her role, somewhat perplexing at first until we find out why, but the title of the play was a big clue.

Fortinbras (Jack Davidson), a character who appeared briefly at the end of Hamlet, now has a whole new life thanks to Adams’ new comedy, a figure sometimes cut right out of the play, and often forgotten except as a footnote.

Columbine (Rashaana Cumberbatch) is a delightfully difficult creation from Adams, a family member of one of the dead in the play. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, fascinating every time she appeared onstage.

Last to appear is Philippa Domville, whose presence seems to work magic the way she raises the energy of the ensemble, everyone coming to life. I don’t know if she was meant to be a spark-plug but I can only compare it to the arrival of Jimmy Durante in Man Who Came to Dinner, a strategic moment built into the script that inevitably turns everything & everyone upside down. Awesome.

The comedy is sometimes very dark, but maybe our use of the word nowadays loses something given how freely Shakespeare worked between joyful & sad in tragedies, histories or comedies. I found myself rethinking aspects of a play I thought I knew inside out, re-examining relationships in new ways.

And yes there are lots of laughs in Adams’ meta-Shakespearean comedy.

Heratio continues until August 24th at the beautiful Guild Festival Theatre. Click for info & tickets