"Timon of Athens" at Oregon Shakespeare Festival

"Timon of Athens" is among the least-produced plays of Shakespeare's canon, and now that I've seen it, I can understand why. It is a tragedy, to be sure, and unrelentingly so. There are some truly long speeches, few moments of hope or uplift, and just a lot of really dismal action.

On the plus side, I've now checked off another obscure play from the canon checklist. The other plus, I hasten to add, is that Timon was played by Anthony Heald, who is arguably my favorite actor here in Ashland, and the supporting cast was also strong. There was some speculation in our group that some of the actors might be working on acting in all of the plays in the canon, so being in Timon gets them closer to that.

The Play

Timon is a weathy nobleman of Athens. He loves nothing more than giving gifts to his friends and admirers and even strangers. He is generous to a fault. Specifically, he is living beyond his means, borrowing against his land and holdings to pay for his fabulous lifestyle, and indeed, borrowing from those same people in his circle of friends who are the beneficiaries of his generosity.

So inevitably, he has a cash crunch, where his creditors demand payment and he has no way to pay, and none of his friends will make him whole. This makes Timon angry, and he renounces all human contact and goes to live in a garbage dump with no human contact. He spends pretty much the whole of the play after intermission ranting in piles of garbage.

So it's not super complex, but there are some points to be made about about how people view money and wealth, and how money changes people. According to the Playbill, "Timon" was Karl Marx's favorite Shakespeare play.

The Production

The saving grace this afternoon was the production. Particularly in the first half, the director has added music which is often timely and even poignant (e.g., "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?"). If anything, I wish they'd been able to incorporate more music, because it breaks up the unrelenting speeches and downward spiral of the action.

Also, the acting was excellent. Though it's certainly not among Shakespeare's best stories, it does contain some good language and clever dialogue, and Heald and Vilma Silva in particular make you at least want to care about some of these characters and what they do. Though they never reconcile, they do at least come to sort of an understanding late in the play, and that's about as satisfying a moment as "Timon" affords.

And the desolation of the last act, that takes place on a trash-strewn bare stage with the tatters of fallen curtains and such, is quite effective. Not that you really need visual reinforcement of the plummeting fortunes of Timon and the others.

Bottom Line

I was already fairly sure this was not going to be one of my favorite plays, but it still felt worth seeing. I always enjoy the work of the terrific actors at Ashland, and the creative staff pretty much did all they could to make it worthwhile.

So, I check off another box on the scorecard and move on to the next play.