Banning and Translating Shakespeare Are ‘Equally Dangerous,’ Says Broadway Star Patrick Page (Exclusive)

Tony Award nominee Patrick Page is not surprised that the work of William Shakespeare is still being banned around the country in 2023, but he does have some thoughts on the matter.

The Broadway veteran, currently starring in his solo, self-created play All the Devils Are Here: How Shakespeare Invented the Villain, has spent most of his life studying Shakespeare. While he personally values and has pursued a livelihood in the literature, he exclusively tells The Messenger that he also understands why people shy away from it. 

This year, Florida schools were required to teach only choice excerpts from Shakespeare's plays as opposed to entire works, per Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' newly implemented conservative education policies. In 2022, the Parental Rights in Education Act, often referred to as the "Don't Say Gay" bill, was introduced to the state. 

The legislation prohibits discourse surrounding LGBTQ+ and gender-based topics in certain grade levels, and it suggests that any educational material sexual in nature should be banned from the classroom. If teachers do not comply with the district's new rules on the plays, they may face complaints or legal action from parents and guardians, or disciplinary action from employers.

"It's a bit cyclical. I mean, we've gone through periods in history where Shakespeare has been altered or banned, and for different agendas," says Page. "The thing that's so glorious about Shakespeare, which I deal with in my show, is that he wrote the most complicated, nuanced, beautiful plays that have ever been written by anyone. We have 37 of them, and we have 154 sonnets, and yet we have absolutely no idea what his politics were, because he writes in a way that is universal."

Shakespeare didn't make his own social or political persuasions evident through his work, Page explains, adding that the ubiquitous storytelling often encourages people to interpret the work in a way that feels most beneficial to their own ideologies, including those in positions of power. 

The Hadestown alum says he is ultimately not surprised by the ban, specifically because Shakespeare has been historically thwarted by people who don't want to acknowledge the many minute complexities of human nature that the work addresses. Instead, Page says, many would rather focus exclusively on the parts they understand and can relate to. 

"That's one ideological pole — people who would ban Shakespeare because they think he's too naughty, or he talks about things that are too pointed, or sexual, or political, or because girls dress up as boys," Page says. "That's one side. The other side is the people who say, 'Well, we need to translate Shakespeare into modern English, because he's not accessible enough for everybody.' And that's equally dangerous.

"The form and the content are inextricably linked. One cannot be separated from the other. The form is the message in many ways," he continues. "And so, Shakespeare never writes from a point of view of having the answers to any question. And that can be very frustrating for people who think they do have the answers. But if you're willing to live in a mystery as Shakespeare does, and if you're willing to live in a paradox as Shakespeare does, then it's a beautiful thing."

All the Devils Are Here is now in previews at the Daryl Roth Theatre.