The first lesson of Witch, the final play of APT’s Tony Award Winning 2026 Season, is that the Devil is unnecessary.
Yes, he comes in and tempts our characters, with pride and revenge, and promises them to work in the world on their behalf, in exchange for their soul. But this Devil forgets to file the paperwork - and the promises come true nonetheless.
Two men, the Prince and his Rival, each believe that he has sold his soul to the Devil, but they make their own sinful wishes come true. The Devil does not come to town and turn an otherwise law-abiding and law-believing citizen to unexpected self-serving greed. Instead, he comes to those who are already saying these sinful words, feeling these sinful desires. Perhaps they even say these words to others, but certainly the words rattle around in their own heads. The Devil does not plant a new idea - he elicits belief in a preexisting one.
Perhaps the Devil is lying, making a wry and demoralizing joke. Maybe the paperwork was, in fact, filed, or it doesn't need to be, or there is no paperwork to file. The silken tongue of the Devil, saying your own words back to you, to your agreement and belief, is enough, is all it really takes.
The Devil can’t lead a horse to water. But he will make him drink.
In this way, perhaps, the Devil is just a word we use to point at the the implacable and occasionally irresistible words that we say to ourselves, and the unfortunate facts of the world that we must explain. Why do we give in? Why did they give in? Why might I give in?
One clue as to the Devil's unnecessarity is his lack of power.
The Witch initially tells the Devil “no”. He is shocked - this is the first time that’s ever happened to him. He tempts and tempts again. to no avail, then goes “off the clock” and spends a week listening to the Witch, questioning himself, and falling in love.
At long last, however, the Witch finds her wish: the complete annihilation of humanity. Wipe the slate clean, allow us to start over, fresh, to try new ideas, to be other people that we can be. The Witch loves humanity, and believes that a better version of us is possible. She asks for this out of sacrificial love - this is the price for which she will sell her soul.
But am I to believe that no one has ever asked for this from the Devil? Out of love, or out of hate? Surely in all this time there has been some wretched of the earth, scorned and shunned, hated and feared - as is this Witch - who does not have the strength of spirit that our Witch showed in saying “no”. Surely someone has asked for this before.
But, by my estimation, the slate has never been wiped clean. No layer of the archaeological or historical record reveals a past annihilation of humanity. Erasing all individual humans, every particle and strand of social structure that we have created, inherited, and reproduced. We've never started fresh since civilization began. Every day has followed the last, and none other.
The Devil does not have the power to act in that way in the world. Again, he can only encourage us to do what we already want to do. Though the Witch wishes that we had a clean slate, she does not have the power to make it so - and so neither does the Devil.
God does, however. He exercised it with the Flood - though that may have only happened poetically, in our hopes for what is symbolically true about humanity.
The Witch is negotiating with the Devil, but she wishes she were negotiating with God.
This is all complicated by the opening lines of the play. The Witch appears in prologue, and addresses us, the audience. “The most important question to ask yourself”, she says, “is ‘do I have hope? Do I believe that another world is possible?’ If you answered ‘yes’, good for you. You're on the right track. You don't need this play - sit back and enjoy it anyway. If you answered ‘no’, however, this play is for you.”
I was intrigued by the provocation, though a little dispirited to be told that I didn't need this play. I am somebody who believes that a better world is possible. But still, I was intrigued. Were I to write a play, it might very well contain sentiments such as these, explicitly or implicitly. Alright, O bold playwright, naming it so directly. How would you get someone to believe?
By the end of the play, the Devil has come around, falling in love with the Witch as they talk “off the clock”, doubting his ways, his work, his whole sense of the situation. At first, he believes that all humans are broken, that they will sin, and he gets to play it all like a game, wreaking havoc and downfall as he saunters away. On to the next client with soul to sell.
He's never truly believed in Good, has never experienced a “no”. He cannot imagine what might bring someone to say “no”. His world has opened, and by the end, he's pleading with his boss, the meta-Devil, or perhaps God, to let him go, to let him explore another mode of living, another way of believing.
The Witch, however, despite her provocation in the prologue, has lost hope, by my estimation. The Witch believes that a better world is possible - but believes that it is unattainable. From here, and now, and we, at least. The only path available is to wipe the slate clean. We are doomed.
Here I disagree.
In some ways, I follow Pascal's Wager, a famous thought on God, the vulgar form of which goes as follows:
God may or may not exist. If God does not exist, it doesn't matter how you act. But if God does exist, it matters a great deal how you act. Thus, you should act as though God exists. QED.
And so I ask the Witch her own question, slightly changed: You believe a better world is possible; can we get there from here?
The answer may be yes or no.
If no, your actions don’t much matter either way. The Devil will have his satisfaction, and God his lament. You may pursue love and hope and futility, or you may feast on the grim satisfaction of the cynic, a bland and nutritionless meal. We live a doomed and tragic life.
But what if we can get there from here? If you act as though this truth is true, you work alongside the Angels. But if we can change the world, and you ignore it, then by your doubt, your lack of action, your foolish and unimaginative commitment to inertia, you work alongside the Devil.
And so, for purely pragmatic reasons, I choose to act as though we can get there from here. An unknowable - yet somehow malleable - landscape of possible futures stretches out before us, in all directions. I am among the humans whose fate is to inhabit this landscape of possibility, as are you. I choose the quest - quixotic and futile, or right and good - over the siren song of hopelessness.
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There's extra room on the Ark here at the end of the season, so let's shout out all the actors, two and two and two.
The Supernatural
Nate Burger: The Devil
The only thing I heard about this play before going in was, “Nate Burger gets to play the Devil.” “Gets to” is exactly right. I know I said his Orator in The Chairs cut the most dashing figure I'd ever seen, but this Devil is stiff competition. He has the quickness, and the confidence, and the grin. But this Devil also doubts and yearns and falls in love. A wide-ranging performance that I feel lucky to have seen.
Colleen Madden: The Witch
She's not actually a Witch, of course, just a misunderstood and hated woman who is blamed for the strange maladies of the world. I believe that this is literally the figurative “scapegoat”. She wears the weariness well, and displays the quiet confidence of somebody who is serious, despite never being taken seriously. She is given room to plea, to love, to believe, allowing Colleen's optimism to stretch its wings.
The Soul Sellers
Trevyn Wong: The Prince
The scene in which he murders his Rival is intense. He bashes him over the head with a heavy object: once to knock him prone, twice to stun him cold, thrice to do the deed. And then twenty more times to give the Devil his due. He smears blood on his face and chest and clothes and twists into madness, eyes staring into nothing, Morris dancing to hyperventilation. The intense music quiets, and we see this scene continue in heavy-breathing silence, as it would have been in that room, before he slowly comes to an unfathomable realization. Wow. Well done.
Casey Hoekstra: The Rival
The common man, now favored by the King. who sells his soul to become the heir. He's the model for the Devil, in a way, who can appear in any guise. The Devil has appeared as a woman before, young or old, but he didn't like the way that people looked at him, and chooses now to appear as a young man. People believe that a young man is headed for success, and that to deal with such a Devil will be most profitable. Casey is sure of himself, full of himself, even, calculating and remorseless. He has the smug satisfaction of self-belief.
The Bystanders
Triney Sandoval: The King
Triney plays a great king. I believe that he is shrewd and delusional, pompous and manipulative, doubtful and questioning, all at once. The tenderest scenes are when he speaks to the framed portrait of his deceased wife, who challenged and dominated him, much to his delight, in life. We get to see a humbler side of this great(ish) man.
Samantha Newcomb: The Lover
Married to the Rival, she's moved to the castle as a servant. They've kept their relationship secret for five years, while the Rival establishes his position and angles towards the throne. In an early scene, at the King's table with the Prince and the Rival, we do not yet know how she relates to the other characters. She is mute and unobtrusive. I was shocked to discover the deep relationship. I had written her off as a background character in those scenes. In subsequent scenes at the King's table, her nonverbal communication, as her lover began to betray her in her very presence, was electric. It makes me want to see the play again, to pay far closer attention to her in those early scenes.
Unfortunately, it's all sold out, and has been for months. If you've got tickets, lucky you. Maybe you can find a last-minute ticket, though - check the website daily.
The core questions of Witch, however, are available to all: Should you act as though a better world is possible? And should you act as though we can get there from here?
Yes,
Twin Crix
