TIMON OF ATHENS. To 3 October.
London.
TIMON OF ATHENS
by William Shakespeare.
Shakespeare’s Globe In rep to 3 October 2008.
2pm 5, 13, 17, 20, 23, 27, 30 Sept.
7.30pm 4, 12, 16, 19, 22, 26, 29 Sept, 3 Oct
Runs 2hr 45min One interval.
TICKETS: 020 7401 9919/020 7087 7398.
www.shakespeares-globe.org
Review: Timothy Ramsden 30 August.
Credit-crunch Shakespeare at the extreme.
The runt of Shakespeare’s litter, Timon has none of the playwright’s sympathetic characters or quotable lines. Timon apart, there’s no strong character. And little story, more a few extended situations. The mood’s gritty and grim. It out-Lear’s Lear in its gloomy end, Timon dying in an obscurity closer to Webster than Shakespeare’s nobler tragic deaths.
And it’s hard to sympathise with Timon, who throws his money around; literally, in Lucy Bailey’s revival as Simon Paisley Day processes through the groundlings, showering (theatrical) gold, before bestowing largesse far and wide among his fellow-Athenians. His faithful Steward Flavius knows where all this is leading, and when the money’s gone he has none of Timon’s certainty that the spongers and wheedlers who’d eaten his banquets and accepted his presents will dive in to help out.
Disabused over human nature, Timon shuns Athens as Coriolanus did Rome, finding gold in his desert retreat. Meanwhile the soldier Alcibiades, Coriolanus-like again, declares war on his treacherous home city. Apart from Coriolanus, this is also the Shakespeare of Troilus and Cressida’s world of betrayal and disillusion. With less narrative or variety of character, its few women part of the money-grubbing world.
Bailey emphasises tooth-and-claw nature. Designer William Dudley stretches a web over the Globe, where birds of prey hover, swooping viciously on bungee ropes, or converting to crow-like creditors. The disillusioned Timon has his flatterers bay and behave like dogs at his last, ironic invitation to feast. Like a disgust-ridden Lear, Timon peels off his loose white robes, spending the second half in underpants.
And sometimes barely in those, as he deposits excrement over his later gold find when greedy citizens resume their fawning, forcing them to increasingly repellent experiences as they seek to retain his favour. There’s plenty of gruesome comedy as the Globe’s hygiene-conscious spectators respond to what’s been simulated before them.
Importantly, there’s also a finely-spoken performance, characterised in detail from the tall, lean Day. He catches the careless benevolence, bitter irony and disillusion; all perfectly contrasted by Godfrey’s cautious and always faithful steward, the most sympathetically humane character in this cruel, base world.
Poet/Caphis: Michael Matus.
Printer/Creditor’s Servant: Michael Jibson.
Merchant/Servilius: Christopher Brandon.
Jeweller/Flaminius: Peter Bankole.
Timon: Simon Paisley Day.
Messenger/Sempronius/Bandit: Sam Parks.
Old Athenian/1st Senator/Creditor’s Servant: Robert Goodale.
Lucilius/Lucius/bandit: Jonathan Bond.
Apemantus: Bo Poraj.
Flavius: Patrick Godfrey.
Alcibiades: Gary Oliver.
Alcibiades’ Friend/Creditor’s Servant/Bandit: Vinicius Salles.
Lucullus/Bandit: Adam Burton.
Ventidius/Oliver Boot: Oliver Boot.
2nd Senator/Creditor’s Servant: Richard Clews.
3rd Senator: Frank Scantori.
Cupid: Fernanda Prata.
Phrynia: Pippa Nixon.
Timandra: Laura Rogers.
Amazons: Bethan Walker/Sian Williams.
Director: Lucy Bailey.
Designer: William Dudley.
Composer: Django Bates.
Choreographer: Maxine Doyle.
Movement: Glynn MacDonald.
Voice/Dialect: Jan Haydn Rowles.
Text work: Giles Block.
Assistant director: Dan Ayling.
Assistant choreographer: Fernanda Prata.
Assistant text work: Russell Bolam.
2008-09-01 00:13:42