Video: Patrick Page Is Tackling Shakespeare's Biggest Role

Welcome to Backstage with Richard Ridge

My guest, Patrick Page, is one of the most respected actors of his generation

He is also a renowned playwright and teacher. You know him from such shows as The Lion King, Spider-Man, Turn Off the Dark

Casa Valentina, Spring Awakening, a man for all seasons, and from his stunning performance as Hades in the Tony Award-winning musical, Hades Town

Well, now he is getting a career-defining performance as King Lear at Shakespeare Theatre Company

where it has just been extended for a third and final time. Now through April 16th, please say hello to my friend, Patrick Page

Hello. It is so great to see you. First off, how are you, my friend, and where are you

I am great. I am in my cozy little apartment, which is right above the theater in Washington, D.C

And as you can see, I have lovely windows, and I have beautiful light

and I just can pop right down and do the show and pop back up and sleep

which is pretty much all the old man, King Lear allows me to do. This has to be like an actor's dream, like

oh, I live above the theater during this. And then I go, no, I'm serious

I mean, this is like everybody's dream as an actor. Like, I live above the theater

I rest up here, then I go downstairs, and I give a performance. It's exactly every actor's dream

And you're reminding me when I was a little boy, I suppose I was about three years old

My father was an actor at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and because they didn't pay enough money for him

to have his little family. I was there with him, and my mother and my little brother were back in Spokane

But my father and I lived in what was called the tiring house above the theater

in the Elizabethan Theater, the Oregon Shakespeare Theater, a little bed. And so I sort of lived in Elizabethan Playhouse

when I was a boy. So this is like a full circle moment for you now

Right? Yeah, yeah. Well, listen, my friend, I have to, congratulations on your King Lear

I mean, how did this Lear come about for you to do? Simon Godman is the artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company

He took over for when Michael Con, who founded the company, retired several years ago

and I'm an associate artist of the theater, and we did an international search all over the world

to find the best possible person to lead this theater. Simon is one of the world's top classical directors

He is an associate, a director of the National Theater of Great Britain

where he recently directed much to do about nothing that the Romeo and Juliet

you may have seen with Jesse Buckley, And Josh Holly on PBS, which was also from the National Theater

Anthony and Claire Patrick with Ray Fines at the National. He did a very acclaimed production of Hamlet for the Royal Shakespeare Company

of Time and of Athens for the Royal Shakespeare Company with Catherine Hunter. So this is one of the world's top Shakespearean directors. somehow

the Shakespeare Theatre Company managed to get him to be their artistic director

although he still remains active in theatre in London as well where he just recently directed

a different bunch of do about I think in London and then he directed one year

as well in Washington so when the pandemic hit is planned for his season

were sort of stymied as everyone's work. And I had written him and said

well, perhaps we could do something with my one-man show all the devils are here

And he very graciously offered to make a film of it, which we did

And it was quite successful. It was reviewed very well, and it did well in terms of it streaming

And it was after that. So he and I worked on that

a bit together and in his role as artistic director. And we shot it on that climbed stage here

which is where I'm performing King Lear. And then afterwards he said, well, what should we do next

And he volunteered the idea of King Lear. And I thought I probably wouldn't get to Lear for the next five or ten years

I'm 60 now, which is a good age to play. Blake and Lear, but on the youngish side

And so I said yes, because I couldn't say no to this, doing this role with this particular

director at this particular theater. And so we held this lot really to our hearts, as other things were possible for this

lot. And as you know, I left Hades Town on December 30th and then went immediately into

rehearsals for King Ler. And it's just all worked out marvelous thing

Okay. What I was going to ask you is, I was going to ask you what you're enjoying the most. This is one of the greatest iconic mammoth roles in the Shakespeare canon. So can I ask you

what you're enjoying the most and what the challenges have been with tackling this incredible

King? Yeah, I think what I enjoyed the most was Simon's rehearsal process, which is, in some

ways, very structured in that you feel you're very much part of a process, which is considered

and not just ad hoc, but is also very free and opens one up to the unconscious energies of

the company. really an extraordinary company building. Lear is really an ensemble piece

We think of the title character, but one of the reasons the play is so notoriously hard to get right

is that it really has about a dozen leading roles and everybody has to be at the very top of their game

And so he's put together this marvelous company and then through this extraordinary rehearsal process

made them into an ensemble. humble. And I think the other thing I would say I enjoy is I enjoy being able to do a leer which is fully contextualized in the 21st century. So often when we think about King Lear or when we see King Lear, we think of furs and robes and crowns and Stonehenge kind of setting or Elizabethan ruffs and that kind of thing

And that's all fine. But it leaves us out in some ways We don necessarily know who everybody is by the way they dressed or by the rooms they standing in In this production we know exactly who people are because you see Gloucester in the first scene played by the marvelous Craig Wallace

And he's a four-star general, and you know who he is in Lear's administration

You see Shireen Bab, who in this wonderful piece of cross-gender casting is playing Kent

and we see her and we recognize her as sort of a Condoleezza-Rice type advisor

And so when she steps forward to challenge Lear's foolishness, we know who she is immediately in a way that we don't when we see, you know

the bearded, furred, Kent step forward. And so that kind of contemporary context, when we see Goneril's house

And it's this beautiful, modern living space with an obviously very expensive couch that's been trashed by Lear's knights and is covered with pizza boxes and litter and vodka bottles

We understand Goneril's point of view that these hundred knights have come in and have taken over her house in a way that's unacceptable

And so all of this contextualization, I think, makes the play immediate and understandable for us in a way that I've seen a great many lyrics lately

I'd say within the last 10 years, I've seen at least a half a dozen, Ian McKellen and Garrett Jacoby and Anthony Sher and Michael Pennington and John Let's Go

And in every case, they've been productions which have been set in some remote location

and time. And so for me to be in a play that is so fully modern and contextualized, I think, is one of the

great joys of it. Well, the other great thing about this is your production, you have such a new, young audience

that's been introduced to Shakespeare, which I think is absolutely amazing. What that means to you, I mean, the reviews for this production and your personal reviews

are like unbelievable. First of all, do you read reviews? I do, yeah. I don't have whatever strength of people summon who are able not to read reviews, I don't share their strength. I'm too curious. And my brain plays too many tricks on me for that. So yes, I read them for better or for worse

So I want to ask you, because I spoke to Julie Harris years ago and Julie said, Richard, I read the good and I read the bad. I try to just put a barometer about every

but I read them all. But like I said, what you received for this production

is incredible with everybody connected to it. And like I said, it's been extended for, I think

a third or fourth time or whatever. You're now through April 16th. I mean, you can beg, borrow, or steal a seat to this

And like I said, you're reaching a whole new audience of young people being introduced

or even older people being introduced to Shakespeare for the very first time, and what that means to you as an actor

and the future of the theater. Well, it's everything to me. you know if you talk about having having a mission or a meaning or a purpose in your life

that would be my mission and meaning and purpose and that I found in these plays

something worthwhile something worth doing something that I felt I could spend my life

pursuing and that would look we're all looking to for some meaning, aren't we

And that these plays address that. The questions of the play are big enough

deep enough, profound enough that you can spend your life investigating these plays

And indeed, I've been investigating Lear for the last 40 years. And I will always find more in it

I will never get to the bottom of it. And so when you love something and when you see the value of something

you want to share it with somebody. If you go to a magnificent restaurant, what's the first thing you want to do

You want to tell everybody, you have to go to this restaurant. You must go if you read a great novel

The first thing you want to do is say, you really must read this. You must

You want to share it with the people you love. So for me, it is everything that people seem to be connecting, and especially young people

And I thank Hadestown for a lot of that, because Hades Town brought me to a younger audience

And they as Mitchell's work, Rachel Chalkins' work, connected with a young audience that brought them then to me

and because of this magical time we live in, Richard, where I can communicate with them through Instagram

through Facebook, through Twitter, we have, through cameo, we have relationship, and they come to the theater because I'm in it

And they might have been scared of Shakespeare before, but they've built some trust with me personally

And so they come. and then they fall in love with the play and the playwright

And that is the greatest gift I could ever be given. Yeah

You know, the Hades Town family, you know, I'm close to you and to Reeve and to Eva and everybody else

And I thought to myself, you know, not every show is like that. And there was something very special about Hades Town

From the very beginning, you all banded together. And I'm sure it was a very hard decision for you to say

I'm going to leave this hit show. I mean, were you fighting with that in your mind

Should I? Shouldn't I? I mean? Well, if I let my mind into it, if I let my brain into it, I'm sure I would fight a lot

I've made that decision from my heart rather than from my brain. There comes a time

And I've been in a number of long runs, as you know. And there comes a time when you know in your heart that it's time for you to leave

and your brain will argue with you. My goodness, this is a hit show

When are you going to be in another hit like this? You get this marvelous paycheck every Thursday

You're giving that up. You have this marvelous community of friends and audiences and an identity

You're taking away your identity as Hades and Hades, all of these things

And you just have to let that go and take that. next step forward. And so that's what I did. But I must tell you, I still have dreams sometimes

in the night where I think, what have I done? What have I done? How am I going to make a living

Sounds like a Shakespeare character is really what it sounds like. But what made Haiti's town

so special for you, Patrick? Well, part of it was the fact that I was involved with it

from such an early stage of its inception, from the beginning at New York Theater Workshop in 2016

and the labs before that, through the Canadian production, through the production of the National Theater in London

and through all the stages of development, that made it very special

But the material itself is so special and that you know I have evidence of that every day of people telling me how important it is in their lives

That Hades County has been a part of their engagements of their weddings

People tell me that they've done the Hades and Persephone dance as their wedding dance

And to be part of people's lives in that way is just really, really special

Yeah. But like you said, to have God. from Hades Town to King Lear

You went from one incredible family to a new one. But of course, you've known this family

at the Shakespeare Theater Company. Let's talk about this wonderful theater in Washington

and what this means to you, the Shakespeare Theater Company. Well, first of all, I mean, let's look at the name of the theater

the Shakespeare Theater Company. So it is dedicated to, doing vibrant, exciting, thrilling productions of Shakespeare

Not museum, Shakespeare, but how do these plays live now? It's in the nation's capital

So Shakespeare is dealing very frequently with kings and queens, with the question of how do we organize ourselves as a society

Who makes decisions? Who gets what? How much is taken? How much is given

These are all the questions that are being decided right here in these buildings that I can see out of my window in Washington, D.C

And the audience is filled with Congress people, senators, Supreme Court justices, lobbyists

And the people who are making the decisions are being spoken to by, at the same

deepest level by this playwright who's considering these questions in the most fundamental way

And a Shakespeare, a theater dedicated to Shakespeare to what that means, the form of the plays

the way the plays are written, to making them accessible to audiences, but never pandering

I think so many people, Richard, have been burned by their experiences at Shakespeare

They go because they're, they've been told. Some person that they love, a famous television star or a movie star is starring in it

and they go and they hold their breath, and they're disappointed time and time again

They don't understand the play, or the play bores them, or the play's too long, long

And they feel lost and they feel frustrated and they feel angry

And I know that's happened to me time and time and time again

And they blame the wrong people for this phenomena. They blame one of two people

They're either blamed Shakespeare and say, oh, Shakespeare is just old and old-fashioned

and it's not really all it's cut out to be. is not the great thing that people think it is

It's a cultural relic. Or, even worse, they blame themselves. And they say, well, I'm just not smart enough for Shakespeare

And I've had really smart people tell me that. You know, well, I just don't get it

And what they're doing is they're blaming the wrong people. Because if that's happened to you, what's happened is you've gone to a production

in which the artists making the production are not skilled enough, not trained enough, or haven't done their work

So the director hasn't fully understood the play. Maybe the director doesn't like to play

I've seen a lot of that recently. And so they try to make it into a different kind of play than it is

Or the actors aren't sufficiently skilled. I use the example all the time of, you know

I love some of my favorite singers are, let us say, Bruce Springsteen and Lady Gaga and Letta Cohen and Willie Nelson and Dolly Parton. These are all extraordinary artists, but I don't want to hear any of them at the Met singing Toska or Regaletto. It's a different skill set. And it's a skill set that one has to train for, that one has to practice and practice and practice

And when it is done by a skilled artist, you in the audience will understand, you will be engaged, you will laugh, you will cry, and you will understand the greatness of the playwright

And so often nowadays, we're not given that opportunity. I gave the example recently

If someone told you, oh, you really need to try sushi and you say, well, I don't like sushi

And you finally try and you go and you get bad sushi. And so you say, I don't like sushi

You try again. And maybe you go to a really good restaurant, a restaurant that is supposed to have terrific sushi

And for whatever reason, you get another bad batch of sushi. And finally you say, I just don't like sushi

Well, and you've had several bad batches. You had a bad chef that night

You ordered the wrong thing for whatever reason. And the fact of the matter is, sushi

when prepared well and when you've ordered the right thing for you is terrific and you're going to love it when you get the right match

And that's the way it is with Shakespeare. And I have to admit that when I go to Shakespeare, nine times out of ten, I'm disappointed

So I'm not surprised that an audience would be fright. And that's why I'm so thrilled with the response to this production that we have young people, people who have

never seen Shakespeare before saying I had a magnificent experience and people who've seen

10 productions of King Lear like Peter Marks at the Washington Post, who've seen more than 10

probably 50 or 60, saying it's the best Lear he's seen. That to me is so rewarding and what I

had hoped would happen. Well, that's why I love this company. And like you said, it was started

by the mighty Michael Kahn, who we all adore. So I'm thrilled

about that. I have to ask you about season two of Schmigadoon

Chicago. When did you film it and talk about your role in this

What can you tell us about season two of Schmigadoon? We shot it last

year over the spring and summer when you have long days, as long

light as you can, you know. It's marvelous. For me, those musicals

of the 60s and 70s, which are the ones being parodied in the second season are those are the ones i grew up with so chicago

pippin godspells sweetie todd jesus christ superstar i mean that's where i live you know and uh so yes

uh our two leads they go looking to find schmigadoon again they don't find schmigadoon but instead

they find a new town and the town is schmikago and um

It's darker and sexier and more dangerous and bloodier. And there's a very important and dangerous man

who sort of runs that town and his name is Octavia crap and he played by yours truly I love this You know you had so much fun between Shmigadoon and Spirited

I mean, you and I spoke a lot during that. I mean, how much fun was it doing Spirited and working with that incredible cast of Will Farrell and Ryan Reynolds

And, I mean, just being part of that incredible new Christmas musical. Oh, it's so great

It's so great. And I think it'll come back every year. I already get emails from people

who've seen it. And it's not just a funny, touching musical, but people take a lot of comfort from it

the whole idea of just do a little good and make some ripples in the world

you know, really touches people. And I hear from people who watch it with their family

have watched it four or five, six times. I just, I'm so grateful to be part of something

like that. And we have the second season of the Gilded Age coming out, which is just like, you know

Broadway royalty across the board. So many wonderful people. And the second season manages the

top the first season. I've been seeing bits and pieces of it as I go into the recording studio

to do a bit of, you know, ADR here and there. And it's just, just marvelous. And that, of course

is on HBO Plus. Look at the life you have now. I mean, look what you've done in the past few years

You've always had this incredible career and the roles you've gone after. But I just love you that, you know, you have the Gilded Age

You have spirited, which will become this yearly Christmas, you know, movie that everybody will watch, you know

And now you have, you know, this King Lear. I mean, you're at the top of your game right now

I mean, you know, you've done a lot of, not soul searching, but you've changed

You've shifted in your life what you've done. Like, you know, we have this conversation before

I mean, you stopped drinking. You're totally sober. I mean, I stopped four years ago

I mean, I loved my red wine. I know you loved your Jack Daniels or whatever

But it's just an interesting choice you made in your life when you made it

And now I look at your career. You always had a great career. But I feel like you're continuing to climb this mountain with this new Patrick now

that's just taking you higher and higher. Would you agree? Oh, thank you

Thank you for that. Yeah, that really touches me. Thank you. Yeah

And I think a lot of recovering alcoholics find that, which is, in a way, you don't know what you're missing

You don't know how much energy there is. You don't know how much love there is out there available to you

And the universe just keeps opening. And it's such a gift. And one of the gifts, of course, is being able to pass on that knowledge

I certainly, oh, boy, do I understand the joy of having a good cocktail or a nice glass of red wine

And but for me, I'm not able to do that. And for me, certainly one of the best decisions of my life was when I said, I'm not going to do that anymore

but you've been an inspiration to so many people because you were very, you went on social media

and you presented your story, you wrote that beautiful letter to Broadway World

I mean, you put it out there and I know personally that you helped a lot of people

So I just want to thank you from the people that I've heard from, but I just feel like your whole career

is taking you somewhere even higher and higher than you already were because some in your life

You know, I also want to ask you, you're also one of the most renowned

And I want to ask you what you enjoy the most about teaching

Oh, my goodness. I really think there are very few joys that equal teaching

There's a moment, especially when you're teaching acting, where you see the penny drop

You see the light bulb go on over the head. And you see a student step into their power

And boy, there's really nothing like that. Because when you learn to act

the fundamental qualities of learning to act truly and well are the fundamental qualities of learning to live truly and well

the ability to be present in the moment to be in neither the past nor the future

the ability to listen, to really listen without projecting into the next moment what you might do

the ability to be spontaneous to act on your true impulse rather than something that you believe would be the acceptable thing in that moment

so that when someone is learning to act truly, they're learning to

they're stepping into themselves, not just as artists, not just as actors

but as human beings. So to be able to facilitate that in any way

it is just the greatest gift. Yeah. Just beautiful. Finally, you know

you're going into the, you know, the show has been extended. I mean, working with this company

and just being a part of Lear and what it means to you personally

of just this production, what it means to you personally to be a part of this

or where you are right now in your career and in your life? Well, you've articulated it really well, Richard

It is a life achievement moment for me. I know that I'm..

I know how lucky I am. I'm grateful for how lucky I am

if I could have shaped my life when I was in high school and said what precisely, precisely down to the detail

would you like to be doing in March of your 60th year, I would have shaped it precisely this way

I can say nothing more than that. Beautifully put, my friend. Well, once again, Patrick Page is giving a career-defining performance as King Lear at the Shakespeare Theater Company

It has been extended for the third and final time to April 16th for tickets

If they're available, I'm sure there's a wait. Is there awaiting? Can people get in still, Patrick

Do you know, is there a cancellation? Yeah, I check. Well, first of all, because we've extended those weeks are large

virtually available. And also I look online and there's always, you know, a couple of tickets here, a couple of tickets there

And so, yes, I think that if people want to see the show, they should be able to see the show. I hope so

Well, look no further than Shakespeare Theater, re.org for tickets to King Lear. Patrick, thank you so much for always sitting with me at Broadway World, being so honest

I love having conversations with you every few months and just catching up with you

Thank you. Likewise. It's so great to see you. Sam, I love to Paige, and everybody, we will see you at the theater

Take care, everyone. Bye-bye