The Count of Monte-Cristo stages a grand revenge at Montreal theatres

Serge Denoncourt does not hesitate when offered the chance to mount Alexandre Dumas's sprawling novel. "I love it like a little boy in a sandbox," he says of classical material. "But theatres don't have the money for this anymore. You don't see big classical productions with large casts in costume very often."

For actors and director alike, classical theatre offers a particular challenge: the language, the epoch, the distance between themselves and the characters' worlds demands a kind of theatrical discipline rarely required in contemporary work. "It allows us to work a language and an era where the characters are very far from us in their way of speaking and carrying themselves. So we work a kind of theatricality," Denoncourt explains.

In his adaptation of Le Comte de Monte-Cristo, the director has stripped away anything unnecessary, concentrating instead on "the genius of Dumas in telling a story." The plot: young sailor Edmond Dantès is falsely accused of treason on his wedding day and imprisoned for fourteen years in the fortress of Château d'If. With help from a fellow inmate who reveals a hidden treasure, he escapes, becomes fabulously wealthy, and orchestrates the downfall of the three men who betrayed him—one of whom has since married his great love, Mercédès.

For Mikhaïl Ahooja, who carries the title role, the appeal is immediate. "Dumas always brings us back to childhood," the actor says. "These are stories that forge us and stay with us our whole lives. And when you return to them, they bring you back to being told fairy tales as a child. Le Comte de Monte-Cristo is such a grandiose revenge—the thing we'd all like to do to our enemies—that there's a really satisfying catharsis for the audience in seeing it staged."

Denoncourt and Ahooja have collaborated eight times since 2011. Denoncourt spotted Ahooja's talent in theatre school and gave him early roles; over the years, their working relationship has evolved from mentorship into something more intuitive. "I direct Mikhaïl half as much as I did ten years ago," Denoncourt notes. "He already knows what I won't like, or where I want to go." Ahooja laughs: "Because I went to Serge Denoncourt school."

The characters in Monte-Cristo exist in a world almost too rocambolesque to be real. "These people can't exist except in a novel or a play," Denoncourt observes with a grin. "At least once per rehearsal, someone says, 'That can't happen, right?'" But that impossible grandeur is precisely what makes the story endure—and what Denoncourt is staging.