REVIEW: ‘Timon of Athens’ at TFANA
Photo: Kathryn Hunter stars in Timon of Athens, now playing at Theatre for a New Audience. Photo courtesy of Henry Grossman / Provided by Blake Zidell & Associates with permission.
NEW YORK — Simon Godwin’s version of Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens could not be better suited for these trying economic and political times. Although the play has been debated, and sometimes frowned upon, by critics and audiences for quite some time, Godwin and his stellar company have found renewed hope in the carefully chosen words of the Bard and his likely writing partner, Thomas Middleton.
No doubt one of the triumphs of this off-Broadway season, this Timon of Athens stands out mostly because of Kathryn Hunter’s stunning turn as the title character. She envisions Timon as an effusive, dominant character who is liberal with her wealth and seemingly unaware of her own demise. Hunter, an Olivier Award winner and frequent TFANA collaborator, ascends to such heights in the first act of this so-called problem play, and this ascension is both figurative and literal. At her posh banquet, which takes up the entire staging area, Timon dances on the table in a regally gold dress while her contemporaries cheer her on. They are in her good graces because at every turn she is forgiving debts and dolling out riches.
Even during these early scenes of frivolity and excess, one begins to see the writing on the Athenian wall. There’s no way this generosity and this lifestyle can continue unchecked; however, Timon doesn’t have too many people in her court of friends who are offering sound counsel. There is one — Arnie Burton’s Apemantus, bedecked in a Patti Smith T-shirt — but he is summarily pushed aside, his protestations stricken from the mainstream and relegated to the fringes.
Godwin’s production — which previously played at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-Upon-Avon, England, in 2018 — continues at Theatre for a New Audience in Brooklyn through Feb. 9. It is co-produced with the Shakespeare Theatre Company, in association with the RSC.
His directorial flourishes can be appreciated as soon as audience members enter the beautiful staging area, which has a period band playing energetic music in the corner and an enormous banquet table being set by members of the cast. It’s almost as if the assembled crowd has been invited to a Timon-hosted dinner.
The backdrop is a gold-tinged drapery that rolls on to the stage, with a pyramid-like cut for entrances and exits. It’s a striking set by Soutra Gilmour, and Godwin uses every last inch of it for wondrous effect.
The inevitability of Timon’s fall becomes stark after the intermission, when Hunter is seen in less-than-regal situations. She digs dirt out of a grave-like space. Her gold gown is nowhere to be found, replaced by rags and undergarments. She urinates in a bucket and chews on carrots — a far cry from the bevy of foodstuffs she and her coterie enjoyed. She is also alone, having severed most of her ties after two dastardly acts: fed up, she fed her friends bowls of blood, and she lost all of her fortunes, meaning her lot in life dropped a few rungs on the proverbial ladder.
Hunter, during these final scenes, seems almost like a transformed actor, someone completely different from the fun-loving, money-giving woman of the first act. She is destitute but not down and out, broke but not broken, embarrassed but not giving up. The performer is able to convey so many of these seeming contradictions with a clever recitation of the dialogue, a sly look to the assembled audience, a wringing of the hands, a stiffening of the shoulders. This is a full-body and full-mind performance, one for the ages.
What makes Hunter’s performance and Godwin’s direction so spot-on is that they combine together into a central thematic element, one that Shakespeare and Middleton wanted to convey: excess is an outdated concept, and fortune certainly will be followed by folly. It doesn’t take too long to find some real-world examples to fit that model.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Timon of Athens, playing at Theatre for a New Audience’s Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn, is co-produced with the Shakespeare Theatre Company, in association with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Written by William Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton. Directed by Simon Godwin. Starring Kathryn Hunter. Running time: 2 hours, 20 minutes. Performances run through Feb. 9. Click here for more information and tickets.
