Dubbed “The villain of Broadway” by Playbill, Tony Award® Nominee and Grammy Award® Winner Patrick Page has never shied away from exploring his dark side. Now, with this tour de force show, he turns his attention to the twisted motivation and hidden humanity at the heart of Shakespeare’s greatest villains. Moving swiftly through the Shakespeare canon, Page illuminates the playwright's ever-evolving conception of evil by delving into more than a dozen of his most wicked creations. Thrilling, biting, hilarious, and enlightening, what Page delivers is a masterclass on the most terrifying subject of them all: human nature.
Mr. Page is a consummately skilled classical actor—one of the country’s finest, although much of his Shakespearean work has been seen outside New York—and the show, which whips by at 80 minutes, is virtually all highlights. And the speeches and dialogues, chosen with care, never blur together into a generalized portrait of malignity at work in the human heart and mind. Each character, from the quasi-comic Malvolio in “Twelfth Night” to the nihilistic Iago of “Othello,” whom Mr. Page analyzes, convincingly, as a by-the-book psychopath, comes alive before us with different shades of menace, mendacity, vengefulness or spite.
You don’t have to be a Shakespeare scholar to appreciate Page’s crash course on the history of the villain. He sets the scenes up perfectly and even shares how contemporary TV shows, like Succession and The Simpsons, draw from Shakespeare’s body of work. After the show, I overheard a fellow audience member say she couldn’t wait to bring her class. It’s required watching for anyone interested in Shakespeare, psychology, worldbuilding, and performance. Shakespeare may have invented the villain, but Page sure has perfected it.
2023 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway Premiere Production Off-Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2024 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Solo Performance | Patrick Page |
2024 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance | Patrick Page |
2024 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | Outstanding Solo Performance | Patrick Page |
2024 | The Lortels | Outstanding Solo Show | All The Devils Are Here |
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