We saw "Timon of Athens" last night at the Bard on the Beach. It was performed on the small stage (the Howard family theatre is the name I think). In the director's notes, the director (Meg Roe) says it's a difficult play and that it is difficult to pin down its themes. That might be because it is a relatively obscure play but after having seen the show and talked about it with the boys, I'm not sure that I agree that it is difficult. The story is basically this -- Timon is a well respected citizen of Athens. She (in this production -- in the original, of course, everyone is a man!) gives elaborate parties and is ready and willing to help everyone in town, paying the bail for one friend, giving elaborate gifts to others and patronizing the arts. Her servant, Flavius, tries to tell her that she is spending too much and that she is increasingly miring herself in debt, but she doesn't take it seriously until all her creditors come bearing their bills. She goes to the people she helped for their help and they turn her away. She is shocked and holds a dinner at which she serves her guests warm water. The guests are dismayed and she abandons Athens and goes to live as a hermit in the country. While digging in the dirt for roots to eat, she discovers gold and of course, people start to show up to be her friend again, but she doesn't trust them any more and the play ends tragically.
Firstly, my sons did not agree on their take on the play. William really liked it and said it was the best show he'd seen at the Bard on the Beach (and he's seen lots). He liked that it was one story, not the usually more complicated layers that we get with Shakespeare. He liked how it was staged and the acting and the way the set worked. Anthony didn't like it. He disagreed with William that the simpler story was better (he likes the layers) and he thought that the tech was sloppy. I agree that the actors were really good and I also agree that the tech was a problem. The lights kept flickering but you couldn't be sure whether it was happening on purpose or was a mistake -- there is one part where she pulls the electrical cord out of the wall and the lights go out -- okay, I get that -- but the flickering before that seemed to happen without rhyme or reason. The set change before the dinner (and really all of them) was really slow and there was no music at the beginning to make you think that it was significant that it was belaboured in that way. Timon (Colleen Wheeler) was excellent and it was a real workout for her when she destroys her home and finds herself on a field of dirt. Patti Allen played Sempronius (one of the friends) and she was fantastic -- she looked like a million bucks and you couldn't take your eyes off her. At the end, Apemantius (Marci T. House) and Timon have a big confrontation and Apemantius (who is played by a black actor) yells, "beast!" at Timon and Timon yells back "slave!" at her and there was this terrific long moment where they just stared at each other -- that was the most memorable of the moments in the play.
Some of it was quite creative -- it starts with a big party and the guests all arrive and you hear snippets of the later dialogue (and they include the audience in this, but then they abandon the use of the audience which felt like a lost opportunity) but it's very fake and "society-party" and the ending was reminiscent of Godot with the two servants dealing with the aftermath. I think that the theme is that the world of people ("society") can be toxic and if you depend too much on the opinion of others and sacrifice yourself to gaining their good impression, then you're lost. I think you could have done something stronger in contrasting the world of society with the world of nature, where Timon seeks refuge. In fact, a lot of this production felt like a loss of opportunity -- lots of great ideas, many of which did not come to fruition. But still, worth seeing.
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