Patrick Page’s investigation into Shakespeare’s villains is a master class on the Bard and a bravura demonstration of Shakespearean acting. In All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain, Page brings a lifetime of performing and thinking about Shakespeare to the stage. He inhabits characters running the full range of Shakespeare’s dramatic career and imparts some of the wisdom he has accrued along the way, summoning evil spirits one moment and serving as congenial, good-natured, and charismatic host into the heart of darkness the next.
Timon of Athens
There are numerous challenges in staging Timon of Athens, one of Shakespeare’s least produced works (perhaps not even performed during his own lifetime). It’s an invective-filled and disjointed morality tale, a story of a profligate spender let down by false friends who turns to excessive isolation and bitterness. Probably coauthored with Thomas Middleton, Timon is usually described as deficient in some way or as so odd as to defy categorization: words such as “baffling,” “curious,” “unfinished,” “abandoned,” and “mistake” populate major works of criticism. Even its place in the First Folio is dubious, as textual oddities arguably demonstrate it was not originally intended to be included among Shakespeare’s collected works.
Measure for Measure
Measure for Measure (1604) has long been considered one of Shakespeare’s problem plays. Partly it’s because of corruptions in the printing, but also, as a purported “comedy,” it’s never fully satisfying. In the right director’s hands, though, it can be deeply intriguing and memorable.