If you’ve ever been to a performance of a William Shakespeare play, your playbill likely included some reference by an actor or director to a one-of-a-kind instructor who opened their eyes to the Bard’s brilliance. And you might have asked yourself: Why did they get the good one? Why did I have to learn “Macbeth” from SparkNotes because my monotone professor put me to sleep?
Fortunately, Patrick Page is the cool English teacher you never had. In “All the Devils Are Here” – continuing at the Shakespeare Theatre Company (STC) through December 29 – Page offers a solo masterclass in the base instincts and raw humanity at the core of Shakespeare’s great antagonists. While that’s not an obviously entertaining premise, the performance is a supremely entertaining experience.
Page has a lesson plan: he wants to prove to you that Shakespeare invented the modern, complex villain. But there’s no textbook. Instead, Page adroitly persuades the audience of his thesis through dramatic performance, showing rather than telling. It is one of the most compelling and downright fun bits of both lecture and theatre that this reviewer has ever seen.
At its core, “All the Devils Are Here” – directed by STC Artistic Director Simon Godwin – confidently weaves together two strands of storytelling.
The first is something like a professional seminar – an overarching history of the progression of the Shakespearian villain, delivered by Page directly to the audience with sharp wit and contemporary references that keep the discussion accessible and lively.
The second is a series of performed scenes from across Shakespeare’s works in which Page offers exemplar character studies of the Shakespearian villains, each delivered with impeccable pacing and verve.
And those two threads mesh seamlessly. Page attends to the technical and historical details that Shakespeare aficionados will look for while maintaining a conversational tone that keeps the rest of us engaged in what could otherwise be an esoteric lecture.
By focusing on the most memorable scenes featuring his nine chosen villains, Page frees up creative space to dive deep into these characters’ psyches.
Instead of drowning out Claudius in Hamlet’s tortured equivocations, Page puts his subtle inner conflict in the spotlight. Instead of breathlessly reciting a soliloquy in “Henry VI” by the future King Richard III—whose significance in that play is often only apparent to those deeply familiar with English history—Page can invest the time on stage needed to understand the man’s motivation and, no less importantly, Shakespeare’s intentions with him.
These star turns by often upstaged antagonists are fascinating to watch as illuminating character studies. They are no less impressive as examples of Page’s Shakespearian acting craft. The nine villains and their occasional scene partners all come across as distinct, often very real, people. There’s no repetition, no sense of having heard Page use the same voice or seen him use the same blocking twenty minutes ago. Each scene feels fresh. Together, they form their own gripping world of driven antagonists, a world that, despite its inherently dark psychological themes, you may not want to leave.
That’s because Page’s narrative ably fleshes out this world for us. The script avoids airy platitudes in favor of concrete observations. While “All the Devils Are Here” assumes we agree about Shakespeare’s genius, it never feels fawning or gushy. Page-as-lecturer adopts a familiar voice, relying on his studied performance during the dramatic interludes to demonstrate his bona fides. He favors plain language: there are no SAT words meant to flaunt his mastery of his subject. The overall vibe is mature, but breezy and welcoming.
In that way, “All the Devils Are Here” strikes an immaculate balance between poetic and accessible, sober and playful. And it’s Page’s ability to speak to us at once on intellectual and conversational levels that makes this production truly special.
One can quibble around the edges of Page’s design. Blink and you’ll miss Edmund, King Lear’s scheming, illegitimate son, who’s either shortchanged or unnecessary. A not-very-oblique allusion to current politics feels a little too on the nose. And Page curiously declines to explore the distinction (if there even is one) between ambition and actual villainy in the case of Lady Macbeth, a character who, perhaps not coincidentally, doesn’t seem to fit well within his overarching thesis.
But these minor criticisms pale in comparison to the strength of Page’s underlying concept and execution. At its core, “All the Devils Are Here” offers a unique opportunity to see an elegantly packaged selection of Shakespeare, alongside the most energetic dramaturgy one could imagine.
If, like this reviewer, you never had the chance to take that one Shakespeare course with that one cool professor, “All the Devils Are Here” at least gives you the chance to sit in on class for one evening. Best of all, there’s no test at the end—you can just enjoy the show.
“All the Devils Are Here” continues through Dec. 29 at Shakespeare Theatre Company’s Klein Theater, 450 7th St. NW, Washington, D.C., with performances on select Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 2:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., and Sundays at 2:00 p.m. For tickets and information, call the box office at (202) 547-1122 or visit ShakespeareTheatre.org. Run time is 1 hour and 25 minutes with no intermission.
Komen