Titus Andronicus & Timon of Athens

by William Shakespeare

  In 1981 Jonathan Miller directed a version for the BBC Shakespeare. Filmed entirely in "vast studio sets,"98 Miller updated the play to:

  Elizabethan times and costumed the men, entirely in black with white ruffs, as Spanish grandees at the court of Philip II of Spain. The set consisted of massive pillars, which reappeared in more stunted form in the second half, while Timon's cave was like a Second World War gun emplacement with a blockhouse in the background.99

  The majority of critics thought Jonathan Pryce "an obvious choice for the part of Timon":100 "Timon's snarling misanthropy ... suits Mr Pryce's style perfectly."101 Stanley Wells, however, was less convinced, approving of the opening episodes: "Jonathan Pryce makes Timon young, courteous, self-effacing, touchingly naive in the pleasure that he takes in pleasing,"102 but arguing that in the last acts "his anger and despair need stronger control over the eloquent language."103 There was universal dislike of John Bird and John Fortune's comic duo as Painter and Poet but praise for Diana Dors's voluptuous Timandra and unqualified approval of Norman Rodway's suave Apemantus and John Welsh's "touching"104 performance as the faithful steward.

  Simon Usher's updated, pared-down version for the Haymarket Studio Theatre used only seven actors in total. With little textual cutting, minor roles were condensed in a stylized production that employed characters speaking in unison and music to underscore "choric and poetic moments."105

  Michael Langham returned to Timon and the Jazz Age in 1994, selecting it to open the third season of the National Actors Theatre in a production which "against all the odds ... enthralls the Broadway audience."106 Timon, "played expansively by Brian Bedford,"107 was intentionally modeled on Jay Gatsby (the hero of Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby). Brian Kulick's 1996 production for the Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park was described as "viewer-friendly" but offered "the feeling of an allegorical comic strip." It was the "director and designers, whose inventiveness is prodigious, who are the stars here, not the actors."108 Michael Cumsty's Timon was compared unfavorably with Bedford's two years earlier in which Timon's "rose-coloured benevolence and black cosmic anger emerged as flipsides of a compulsive, childlike nature ... in a performance [that] gave a credible personal center and ... an emotional continuity to a rough-hewn fragmentary work."109

  In 1997 Penny Metropulos regarded the play as a "Shakespearean work-in-progress" and hence took a number of liberties with it in order to "fit the text to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival stage and find a straight storyline for her actors."110 In her production at Shakespeare's Globe in 2008, dubbed by many a "sub-prime" version in its timeliness, Lucy Bailey didn't take liberties with the text but directed her "highly compelling revival" with "a superbly reckless bravura."111 Her idea of Timon was "to see this man-eating world in terms of carrion and their prey": "I was very influenced by Hitchcock's The Birds in this and I wanted to create this very frightening world of vultures. I also wanted to create a whole world of acting above the audience that would interrelate with them."112 Her vision was realized by constructing

  a net over the groundlings above which the cast, doubling as aerialists, swing and chatter and crouch and bounce, like birds of prey waiting for the first sniff of Timon's exposed meat. Veering from a mad aviary to a mordant anus, the production shows the hero explicitly defecating and rubbing the runny result in the faces of the flattering Poet and Painter in a contemptuous Marxist gesture about the exchange value of money.113

  Even those critics who didn't care for the production felt, like Michael Billington of the Guardian, that "Bailey makes some good points."114 The majority, though, were warm in their admiration, leaving one critic admitting that it "leaves you perversely wondering if Bailey's revival isn't better than Shakespeare's play."115

  AT THE RSC

  Shakespeare's "Most Neglected" Play

  The 1965 RSC program describes Timon of Athens as "one of Shakespeare's most neglected plays"; other evaluations have been less diplomatically phrased. Although included in the First Folio in 1623, there is no evidence that Timon was known, printed, or performed during Shakespeare's lifetime. For centuries regarded as an unfinished draft, due to its internal inconsistencies, it is now accepted as a collaboration between Shakespeare and Middleton.

  The first English performance of the Folio text seems to have occurred in 1816; when the RSC produced Timon in 1965 the play had had only eight previous English productions of any significance in its 360-year lifetime. Since Barry Jackson's unexpected and influential modern-dress production in 1947 ("a fiercely contemporary satire" in which Timon "took refuge in a desolate bomb crater overlooked by a threatening howitzer gun"),116 the production rate has increased--though not to a major extent, despite the play's apparent relevance for our era. It is still very rarely performed.

  The RSC itself has staged the play only three times--on the main stage in 1965 and 1999, and at The Other Place in 1980; to these should be added a rehearsed but canceled production for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in 1971. In the 2006-07 Complete Works season Timon was represented by a coproduction between the RSC and Cardboard Citizens, a company dedicated to theater work "with, for and by homeless and ex-homeless people." This was performed in a new modernized version radically adapted for the company by Sarah Woods; it played very briefly at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust--an artistically exciting and appropriate collaboration, but not one that would increase the original play's exposure significantly.

  Directorial Reshaping

  Although Timon is one of Shakespeare's shorter plays, all the RSC directors have done a certain amount of cutting, and almost all in the same ways, removing minor characters such as the Fool and Page in the first half, streamlining the action heavily after Timon's death.

  Timon is very much a play of two halves, with contrasting settings and tone, "divid[ing] in the middle as symmetrically as the two halves of an apple: ... one ... sweet, the other worm-ridden and mouldy."117 The second half is challenging to stage, as it is highly static, not much more than a litany of curses, with little development; Michael Pennington (who played Timon in 1999) commented, "The writing between the tirades is quite uneven and it is tempting to rearrange it ... trying to impose a more obvious build."118 In 1965 Schlesinger did exactly that, reordering the sequence of visitors so that the bandits followed Alcibiades, to be followed in their turn by Poet and Painter, then Apemantus, and finally Flavius and the Senators. This appears to have worked well: Gareth Lloyd Evans, writing in the Guardian, considered the experiment proved that "really intelligent minimal cutting and transposition of Shakespeare's scenes do little harm."119

  In contrast, although Pennington and Doran did explore re-sequencing the episodes in 1999, finally "some scruple held [them] back, some sense that the jagged music of Shakespeare's experiment might be more rewarding than [their] dull editing";120 the script here remained unchanged and they did not regret their decision.

  1965: Satire or Tragedy?

  The RSC's first production was directed by John Schlesinger, then known primarily as a film producer, and featured Paul Scofield as Timon; it also had unusual influence over future productions in that it included in minor roles both of the RSC's future Timons, Richard Pasco and Michael Pennington. The music was written by well-known classical composer Richard Rodney Bennett; the season's resident designer, Ralph Koltai, was responsible for set and costumes.

  Schlesinger's reading of the play was as satire rather than tragedy. He set out his vision at length in a program note:

  At the start of Timon you watch a self-indulgent, decadent society, and at the centre of it a man, seemingly respected and loved, whose generosity is over-lavish. His friends deny him and he plunges into violent misanthropy.

  But can a man who goes suddenly to such neurotic excesses of human loathing be simply a noble creature crushed by misfortune and ingratitude? Nowadays it is common knowledge--and Shakespeare must have known it intuitively--that a man's surface behavi
or is often the reverse of his true self.

  Timon's generosity is to me suspect. The only way I can make sense of the extreme plunge into morbid hatred is to suppose that the open-handedness of the first act is mainly a fantasy life which Timon subconsciously uses to suppress his real nature, his isolation and inability to make any genuine human contact. In the second act Shakespeare shows us not so much a man changed by misfortune as revealed by it.

  I find the tone of the play ironic and critical, rather than tragic.121

  The production was set in classical Athens, though the costumes also had a timeless quality to them, long robes and medallions combined with leather trousers and high boots for the soldiers--Milton Shulman mentioned "costume affinities with the North-West frontier."122 The exiled Timon wore a long, stained shift, becoming increasingly filthy as Act 4 progressed--yet photographs also indicate a consistent upper-class arrogance of posture and expression in him throughout. This Timon was not one whose suffering reduced him to a beast.

  The set was initially "gorgeously Oriental, evoking Babylon rather than Athens"123 with bold strong colors, "yellow, white and sharp blue,"124 before giving place to "the wasteland isolation of the Waiting for Godot landscape"125--a central marble floor panel cleverly transformed into a large sandpit, Timon's "cave." Toby Young describes the play's visual effect in some detail, highlighting the creative interaction between director, designer, and lighting designer, John Bradley:

  [The production boasts] splendid sets by Ralph Koltai--his usual sliding blocks of coloured, textured masonry in the first act provide a feeling of the luxury of Athens: and in the second half, a sandy trench, a dead tree, and lighting that picks the characters out starkly against the black cyclorama behind. The big set pieces ... are enlivened with ingenious inventions ... [and] subtle touches, the beggars sitting at the corners of the stage during the feasts, for example, or the figures that appear on the balconies to point the scenes (for example a clerk with an abacus when Timon's accounts are in question).126

  Reactions to the production were mixed. But although many of the minor reviewers were cautious, the mainstream critics expressed enthusiasm. Evans said the RSC had "resurrected Timon of Athens and brought it home in triumph";127 Bernard Levin called it a "deep and moving tragedy ... a long-under-rated play ... [with] unsuspected depth";128 Herbert Kretzmer commented, "The Royal Shakespeare Company have now added another splendour to a list already long with honours."129 Penelope Gilliatt's response in the Observer was more analytic but no less positive. Under the headline "A Triumph of Pessimism," she asked:

  Why is it that the extremes in art should sometimes be rather bracing? In life the company of nihilists and misanthropes is dismal, but in Beckett or Strindberg it can be exalting. How on earth is it that the ferocious wretchedness and self-distaste that rages in Lear and Swift should have an effect that is really quite bracing? ... One of the supreme examples of this tonic bleakness is Timon of Athens, which has just been produced at Stratford ... with a thrilling Jeremiah of a performance by Paul Scofield. Someone once called this play "the stillborn twin of 'Lear.' " It is a rather terrifying foetus, dramatically scarcely formed at all but with a terrifyingly world-weary gaze.130

  10. RSC 1965, directed by John Schlesinger. The feast scene showing Timon (Paul Scofield) serving his friends warm stones, Act 3 Scene 6: the set was initially "gorgeously Oriental, evoking Babylon rather than Athens."

  Perhaps the most interesting response came from Mervyn Jones, critic for the left-wing publication Tribune. To an England that had just discovered Beckett and where staging Brecht was still controversial, Timon expressed a very similar worldview, and many reviewers highlighted the parallels. Jones suggested, ironically, "that Timon of Athens was written by Bertolt Brecht," continuing, "if so, John Schlesinger's production is certainly on the right lines" (appreciative comments by several reviewers on the actors' successful use of direct address to the audience support this stylistic evaluation). Jones then proceeded to critique the production in accordance with his theory, quoting Marx and Freud to support his points:

  We must see [Timon] as a product of his society, fatally infected with its vices ... Throughout, we see a man enslaved by his role and insulated from reality: a man whose whole life, whether as popular host or as a misanthrope, and indeed whose death is a pose.131

  He concluded, "[Scofield] is the definitive Timon of our age ... It is a performance of great discipline and intelligence."132

  This response to Scofield himself was echoed by less radical reviewers; comments such as "towering" and "magnificent" were constantly repeated, with particular emphasis on Scofield's vocal ability, the "discordant sweetness"133 of his voice, "now darkly bronze, now glinting in silver."134 Charles Graves, in a perceptive essay in the Scotsman, commented on his characterization:

  Timon is accused of madness, but Mr Scofield quite rightly never attempts to exhibit Timon as mad in the sense that Lear is mad, though we feel that his new-found philosophy is different from that of Apemantus in being the fruit of bitter experience, while Apemantus in setting himself apart from humanity, is assuming something of a Byronic attitude.135

  The Leamington Spa Courier's critic also contrasted the two:

  Apemantus, professional cynic and commentator on mankind, is the one who most nearly establishes a relationship with Timon. He, in a sense, is the pivot of the play, for Timon recognises in him what he himself failed to be: a lonely man who has accepted the fact of loneliness. Played with less dignity, Apemantus could rock the balance of the play, but Paul Rogers brings authority and the essential touch of humanist compassion to a perfectly-poised interpretation.136

  There was also praise for the other minor characters: Young found the grizzled Brewster Mason "dignified and heroic as Alcibiades," though older than expected. The Times' reviewer felt that "the false friends [were] neatly distinguished," singling out "Timothy West as Lucius, trapped at the barber's and writhing in his chair in mixed agonies of physical and moral discomfort,"137 while Evans particularly admired "David Waller's Lucullus, a vicious, tittering spiritual and physical libertine, looking like the dark side ... of Frankie Howard's comic unctuousness."138 He also commented ironically that "for those who hourly expect orgies from Mr Hall's organization, Janet Suzman and Elizabeth Spriggs provide the data without overstepping the mark."139

  1971: Timon in Masks--Canceled

  Only six years later, another mainstage production was scheduled and rehearsed, with Derek Godfrey as Timon, Gordon Gostelow as Apemantus, and Bernard Lloyd as Alcibiades. Unfortunately, this was canceled at the last minute due to the illness of the director, Clifford Williams. However, rehearsal photographs, program and other archive material give a very clear indication of the production's intentions. Williams had directed an immensely successful and much revived Comedy of Errors in 1962. This had a strong commedia influence, and Williams had a background in physical theater and mime; he was drawing on all this for his production of Timon. The production records show a strongly stylized and physical production, with a set consisting of numerous glass cubes and a dead tree, and actors wearing individualized dark and white commedia-style masks throughout.

  The program is dominated by full-page illustrations, offering the audience a range of visual references through which to interpret the play: on the cover the lines "Timon is dead, entombed upon the very hem of the sea" are superimposed on a stylized line-drawing of sun and waves. The images inside include, in order, de Chirico's metaphysical Masks (1917), Oppenheim's Cannibal Art (1959), Dali's surreal Premonition of Civil War (1936), an AD 331 Roman wall painting of a tiger pouncing on a sheep, and Durer's 1520 woodcut, The Triumphal Car of Emperor Maximilian, showing the emperor driven by Reason and accompanied by embodiments of the human virtues.

  Of the verbal quotations featured, Muriel Bradbrook's 1968 comments perhaps give the clearest indication of Williams's intentions:

  Let us call [Timon] "no play but a show": an experimental scenario for an
indoor dramatic pageant. In modern terms it might be called an anti-show; in Jacobean ones: A Dramatick Shew of the Life of Timon of Athens ... together with the City Vice of Usury in diverse Senators, the snarling asperity of prideful Scholars, and the mercenary decline of Poetry and Painting ... All displayed in sundry variety of dramatick utterance, chiefly by way of Paradoxes.140

  Although it seems that the cast at the time had reservations about both play and interpretation, this production showed all the signs of a highly exciting and innovative look at Timon, and it is a great loss that it did not go forward. It would be another nine years before another production would be staged, and this time not on the main stage but in the studio theater.

  1980: Timon in Japan--at The Other Place

  When challenged by the press in 1980 about why it had taken so long for the RSC to produce another Timon, artistic director Trevor Nunn replied that far from the company "overlook[ing the play,] ... they had so many directors yearning to produce it, they could not decide whom to choose."141 The prize went to Ron Daniels, who had been the director responsible for The Other Place for the past three years. The "rough theater" approach and the intimacy of the studio setting had gained The Other Place an enthusiastic following since it opened in 1973. However, this was clearly also a low-risk strategy for a difficult play.

  In any event, the production proved a resounding success. In 1965 criticism of the play itself had been mixed, though production and performers had won plaudits, but here the overwhelming response of the press was that the play itself deserved airing. It clearly spoke to the times: even in 1980 the play's themes resonated with the growing atmosphere of individualism and financial greed that would characterize the coming decade. Michael Billington commented: "[Timon's] neglect seems odd since [it] boasts a bravura leading role and chimes with the modern appetite for emotional extremes ... the play has a powerful and bilious morality ... it is implacably bitter but also ... totally stageable";142 B. A. Young added, "the present time in our national history is particularly appropriate to hear the play, for there is much in our recent affairs reflected in it."143 There was further praise when the production transferred to London: Michael Coveney called it "this engrossing play," adding "you hear a comparatively rare play as if it had been fresh-minted";144 Geoffrey Wheatcroft argued that "the neglect seems puzzling, for it is a beautiful and curious work ... a very funny play,"145 while Irving Wardle wrote of Timon's exile, "These scenes are the greatest test of verse-speaking in the English repertory and anyone who has found them obscure or batteringly obsessive will discover new areas of gentleness, Swiftian wit and exultant music in this thrilling performance."146