The theater is pitch black. Bang. Bang. Bang. An ominous chanting fills the room as red light illuminates the stage, revealing star and creator Patrick Page hovering over a large book as though he is a sorcerer casting a spell. The energy is tense, no one breathes. It feels evil.
Suddenly, he laughs. The lights come up. And the show begins as Page introduces the audience to what exactly he is going to be showing them in his original show, “All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain,” directed by the artistic director of the Shakespeare Theater Company, DC, Simon Goodwin.
Page himself is an incredibly acclaimed actor. Since his first ever theater role as an ensemble member in the Broadway show The Kentucky Cycle in 1993, Page established himself in the theater world as an incredibly talented actor and performer. He developed a bit of a type-cast over this career: the villain. From Scar in The Lion King to Claude Frollo in Hunchback of Notre Dame to Hades in Hadestown and even to the Green Goblin in Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, Page portrayed chilling characters that ranged from broken to pure evil.
This led him to decide to explore the concept of “villainy” in his new original show, in which he takes the viewer through a fascinating exploration of Shakespearean villains, from the beginning to the end of Shakespearen tragedy. The one-man show is simple. The set is simply a black canopy, a desk, and a stool. A few props are utilized, to emphasize certain points or highlight characteristics of a villain, but the entire hour and thirty minutes consists simply of Page, the audience, and Shakespeare.
Page, upon his first character break, quickly acknowledges how utterly confusing Shakespeare can be, joking that it scares him, too. The older, flowery version of English can be hard to understand and daunting. But Page, at the very beginning of the show, promises to walk the audience through each moment, and engage in this journey as a team. And he lives up to his claim. Page constantly jokes about the language used, calls out problematic moments, and teases the audience in a way that feels almost like your favorite English teacher.
Page’s performance itself is phenomenal. There are lighting cues to help the audience understand when it’s Page vs when it’s a character, but they’re dressing versus necessary, because Page so perfectly embodies each character. From the physicality he brought to characters like King Richard (King Richard) and Lago (Othello), to the incredible emotion of characters like Shylock (The Merchant of Venice) and Macbeth (Macbeth), no two villains blend together. Each character is stark and its own, despite all being played by one person in less than two hours. But possibly the one thing that took this show from good to great was Page himself: not as a character, but as him. He masterfully integrated modern day humor and references (including a few small pokes at modern day politics) into what almost felt like a more fun version of an English thesis (How Shakespeare Invented the Villain).
There was not a moment the audience felt tired or unengaged. There was always either awed silence or amused laughter as Page regaled us with tales and tangents that all always led back to his main point.
Page ends the show the way he began it. Bathed in red light, banging his staff on the ground. But where the first scene was from Macbeth, as Lady attempts to summon evil spirits, the last scene is from the Tempest; as Prospero dispels evil and gives up his power. It is a powerful full circle moment.
But the main takeaway from this incredible production was the thesis, stated in the title itself. Page ends his own part of the play, before switching into one last character, by quoting Shakespeare. He states that, in his lifetime of playing villainy, he’s come to the same conclusion Shakespeare did.
Hell is empty. And all the devils are here.
All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain runs at the Guthrie until Nov. 17.