Alexandra Devon’s play promises an exciting musing on terrorism, questioning violence and injustice and exploring the reasoning behind them. In reality the writing and blocking are so dry that the end result can only be a boring piece that fails to provoke a reaction from its audience.
Colin Pip Dixon as the young man is obviously a very well-trained actor. However, I often felt that he was not properly connecting with the material and was simply going through the motions of acting his character. He has the foundation for a very strong performance but it needs work. Occasionally poignant moments were delivered is as if unimportant and the lines were spoken too quickly to make them matter. This was probably not helped by the two-dimensional writing of his character. The script never makes his reasons for hating the visitor fully understood and outbursts seem to come from nowhere, which must make it very difficult to perform convincingly.
The blocking was also not conducive to great acting. Director Mathilde Schennen has obviously instructed her actors to remain very still and rooted to the spot, which makes a lot of their reactions feel unrealistic. This also makes the acting seem very wooden and boring, when both lead actors are obviously very capable. Dialogue between two characters was often directly side-on which meant that half of the emotion was lost. Lighting had also not been blocked effectively to catch actors at all times, particularly in moments of low light.
A lot of the moments when the visitor (MacIntyre Dixon) began to recollect moments from his past or had private emotional struggles were lost because all of his facial expressions are very similar. Equally they last for far too long and quickly become dull to watch. His motivations are frequently unclear, thanks to the dry and lifeless script as well as in the acting and direction.
This play’s saving grace is its music: beautifully composed and played, it provided a haunting accompaniment to what should have been a moving and thought-provoking piece. Both musicians deserve great recognition for putting together such fantastic material, which could have made its audience cry if only the accompanying acting and script had been better-conceived.
Failing to deliver on the promise of its exciting themes and cast of professional actors and musicians, His Majesty The Devil is certainly not a play to which I intend to bow and scrape.
