All The Devils Are Here - Patrick Page

 

The set is a cube with a table, chair, and there are props just outside of the cube...hidden till their reveal at the right time. The open sides of the cube have lights hung on them. All is red. He enters, hits the floor with a staff and is struck by a spotlight. He invokes the "spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here." and with that we, the audience, are off, diving into a masterclass of Shakespeare.

Teaching the class on how Shakespeare invented the villain, and how to perform Shakespeare via the examples he uses, is Patrick Page. He gives a side-masterclass in solo performance as well. I thought it was sheer perfection, though I am certain that Page, as a performer, would disagree. Page, who you might know as Hades from Hadestown (as a start) has done his research and teaches us what characters were like when Shakespeare started writing. He shows us through examples how Shakespeare transformed stock characters (who were immediately identifiable as villians), into villains as we know them now. Simple villians at first - like Shylock who to Shakespeares audience was a bad guy almost right away because he was a Jew, and a moneylender - to much more complex villains, because they are multifaceted characters,  like Richard III, or Iago from Othello. 

As a person, Page is eye-catching with a good physique, a handsome look, and an incredible voice. As a performer, when Page sets up and performs a monologue, or even a scene between two characters, we see him embody the characters. He knows the language and how to use it. He knows his body, face, voice, and how to use them to clearly show us, the audience, fully rendered characters - without makeup or costumes. He has done his research and very clearly shows us his work, his thoughts on how the writing of characters was changed by the pen of one man. Out of all of Shakespeares works, Page has selected nine to dive into, to show us the growth of the villain, nine that he finds to be the most compelling villians. Yet he also shows us through the performance that some of these characters are fully layered and so we the audience may not agree with him on who is the worst villian, or if the characters truly are villains are not. Leaving with some ambiguity is sheer brilliance in my opinion. 

At the end of the 90 min or so work, he takes the staff and using the words from the Tempest, he releases the spirits he invoked at the start. The journey is over, yet I would gladly take it again.