2023 celebrates the 400th anniversary of the first folio of Shakespeare’s collected works. Playwright Charlie Dupre’s script slams the audience straight into the hothouse environment of a struggling publishing house fervidly working on producing what must be, for their fortunes, a considerable commission. Into this fevered landscape arrives troubled John to train as an apprentice. Secured the position by a sizeable financial contribution from his uncle, the young man is cautiously welcomed. He is nursing significant grievances towards authorities after watching his mother executed for witchcraft. The work opens with ear-piercing screams of a woman as the room vibrates with the illuminated impression of flames, John held taut in a moment of shocking witness – a moment that will forever claim him. 

Frazzled shop floor manager Isaac enters into an immediately combative relationship with the new hire, with his intense outbursts and insistence on progressing quickly to typesetter. John seems to have ambitions beyond his station – a fierce, hard need to be a part of the process of bringing story to page, mark by mark. The engraver for him is not a mere cog through which another’s words are brought to bear but an essential collaborator, a co-conspirator, a soul invested. 

With an almost feral contrariness, he would like to reverse the given gospel of witches as funnelled through self-appointed arbiters of morality. Unable to see or believe his mother as anything other than a strong-willed, powerful and clever woman who ran afoul of a patriarchy and was punished for this self-possessed umbrage, he is particularly focused on Shakespeare’s famous coven from Macbeth. Awake at night, bedevilled by words and damning passages from published pamphlets, he imagines sweeping them away in lieu of more progressive possibilities. Rachel Sampley’s lovely video design is an elegant visual gateway into John’s febrile imagination, all beautiful period font. Danny Vavrecka’s lighting design is another major contributor, emphasising John’s encompassing trauma. In one instance, a sudden blast of light startles the senses. 

The cyclical pace can, over the course of 70 minutes, feel a little repetitious, and the intensity a bit unmodulated, but Harry Pudwell as John and Charlie Dupre’s Isaac (the writer pulling double duty) keep the characters sure and interesting. Both suggest the fragility and terror underneath a strident surface. It’s in their relaxed, late-night conversations, all defences eased, when the audience can intimate the prospect for a more tender and good-hearted communication between them, a chance to breathe. The two may be closer in spirit than is first thought, as Isaac grapples with an ill father who continues to interfere from his sickbed, disdainful and dismissive of his son’s efforts – another kind of victim of authority. There are many devils afoot in the workroom. 

Small conspiracies find their way into final text, a personal mark on a tale, with John and Isaac turning towards the fire of a vitriolic victory. 

{🎟 AD – PR invite – Tickets were gifted in exchange for an honest review}

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