The History of the Devil | Polymorphic Productions

Images: Emma Stratton

My plus one and I were eager to see what lay ahead of us when we reached MetroArts for The History of the Devil. The script’s premise was right up both our alleys, and we were excited to see an independent company make their way into the New Benner Theatre. We were hopeful that we would see some evocative, intellectually rigorous, and emotionally poignant theatre. The show Polymorphic Productions gave us was certainly the first of these three things. 

I must be honest; this theatre experience was not a good one. The cast has real promise, and the script has the potential to be performed in intellectually rigorous and emotionally poignant ways, but the direction leaves the text and its performers to fend for themselves, leaves them in the lurch. Speaking as someone who was a performer before they ever wrote or directed; most emerging actors cannot be trusted to hold themselves back. The responsibility falls then to the director to keep the comedy from getting too in-jokey or to keep comedy from slipping into places it shouldn’t be or to keep cast members from doing unnecessary and gauche accents or needlessly yell most of their lines. The director allowed all of this and more to occur throughout the two and half hour run of this production. And while I would usually say these things threw me out of the world of the play, I never really entered it to start with.

Images: Emma Stratton

The History of the Devil sees a team of legal professionals gathered in the desert east of where Eden once stood so that Lucifer might make an appeal for cosmic parole and be allowed back into Heaven, the City of God. Several figures from the past of the Prince of Lies spanning back as far as his fall are cross-examined and the script would have us come to garner sympathy for him as well as for the times and ways he has been betrayed or abandoned – first by God and then by countless others after. Barker’s script is rife with theological rigour and is one that unfortunately demands more resources than Polymorphic Productions had available. The sets and costumes lean so far into the realm of amateur theatre that it borders on the aesthetic quality of a high school production. This is not to position the independent status of this company as a sin, I run one such company and so know the struggles of doing so intimately. However, I will say script choice is just as much an artform as any other aspect of directing or producing. This critique does not extend to this lighting design, however. The lighting is the one great thing about this work.

More than half of the already small audience did not return after intermission and if I had not been there working, I may have joined them. Polymorphic Productions’ The History of the Devil is a prime example of the ways in which the theatrical fish rots from the head down. Having seen it reminds me just how vital a skilled, invested, and attentive director is to the success of a work even if the script is great and the cast have potential.