The seven, once insulated, codependent and guided by their expected roles, see their group dynamic begin to shift and warp as they try to play their new parts. Their individual archetypes lay the basis for their on- and offstage selves, blurring the lines between performance and reality, only to be disrupted when a production of “Macbeth” switches up the usual roles that each character would have received. Rounding out the cast is Oliver, who finds himself aggressively average, relegated to the sidekick. Filippa Kosta, “cool and chameleonic” and impossible to typecast, only ever serves as the extra. Wren Sterling, with her classic girl-next-door delicacy, is the ingenue. Meredith Dardenne, beautiful and fierce, takes the role of the seductress. Richard Sterling, an ill-tempered bully, impresses and intimidates audiences as the tyrant.

Alexander Vass, with his snark and vampiric smile, is their resident villain. James Farrow, effortlessly handsome and undeniably talented, always plays the hero. As their personalities shape their performances on stage, the attributes of the characters they play bleed into their real lives. The story that unfolds is a gripping retelling of how a group of seven friends at an elite arts college brought each other to mutual ruin, jumping between Oliver’s past and present.Įach of the seven characters has a distinct role to play, in both their Shakespeare performances and in life. Retiring detective Joseph Colborne is desperate to know the truth about what happened a decade earlier, and Oliver agrees to tell him - insisting, however, that his account is not an apology. When the book opens, Oliver Marks leaves prison after serving a 10-year sentence for murder, and the book slowly reveals the details of the gruesome crime. Rio’s novel “If We Were Villains” gives a transfixing answer: murder. If you’ve ever wondered what happens when a group of William Shakespeare nerds studying theater get too into their roles, M.

We were villains