Your uncle kills your dad, marries your mom, and YOU'RE the dramatic one?
The ultimate royal family crisis. Prince Hamlet's father is dead, poisoned by his uncle, who has usurped the throne and married his mother, the Queen. When the dead King's ghost appears, commanding his son to revenge his foul and most unnatural murder, Hamlet is set on a course of action that can only end in the destruction of a dynasty and his own extinction.
Acting
Amaka Umeh's Hamlet crackles with raw, unpredictable energy
Direction
Pasyk's tight framing makes the royal court feel suffocatingly claustrophobic
Production
Modern-dress staging that makes the poison feel dangerously present
Director
Peter Pasyk
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This filmed production made history with Amaka Umeh as the first Black woman to play Hamlet at Canada's Stratford Festival—a casting choice that reopens centuries of debate about the Prince's 'feminine' passivity.
Pasyk's production emphasizes surveillance: characters are constantly watched, making Hamlet's 'antic disposition' a genuine survival strategy in a court where privacy is impossible.
CA
