Despite being fancy theater critics, neither of us had ever seen Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens. So when we heard that The Cutting Ball Theater was doing a production of “one of Shakespeare’s neglected classics, featuring some of the Bard’s more experimental verse paired with some of his best poetry” we knew we had to see it. So off we headed to the TL for a night of Drama Talk & Drinks.
Photo by Rob Melrose.
Brittany: I don’t know Timon of Athens well, so it was fun to see it performed. There were some really amazing monologues and great Shakespeare insults in there. I thought the actor who played Timon (Brennan Pickman-Thoon) was really impressive. I also enjoyed Apemantus (David Sinaiko) and Flavius (Courtney Walsh), they both had such a strong command of the language.
Katie: When any of the other actors were talking though, they might as-well have been speaking gibberish. Watching a Shakespeare play sometimes feels like watching a play in another language to me, I have to focus so hard to follow along. When actors don’t have command of the language it’s difficult to stay engaged.
B: Totally, if it weren’t for the strong Timon, that would have been a total snoozefest. Maybe it’s because the ensemble was playing so many parts, but at times it felt like they were just doing caricatures. They didn’t seem get into the language enough to fully develop their characters. The whole armed insurrection sub-plot was kind of overshadowed by the Timon drama. Then some directorial choices I didn’t fully understand, like the overly sexual guards or some of the weird dance party bits, but I think it’s partially because of an unbalanced cast.
K: The actor (Doug Nolan) who played the punk-rock dude and the senator drove me crazy. I hate inconsistent accents, and when he was trying to do the southern accent it kept going in and out, and he couldn’t keep up the rocker thing he was trying to do either!
B: The second he started losing his accent I was like “Katie’s going to be so pissed!”.
K: I was! Onto things I liked though, often when Shakespeare plays are set modern times it doesn’t work for me, but this concept worked for me. It added to the story.
B: Yeah, seeing Timon smoking a crack pipe on the street in a homeless tent added context to my reading of the show. The shift he made from being a super rich tech titan who throws Burning-Man-Like parties to being out on the street homeless definitely made an impression.
K: If you love Shakespeare, and want to see a less often performed Shakespeare play this isn’t a bad production. For me, unless I’m seeing all incredible actors I don’t find watching Shakespeare particularly enjoyable.
B: If you like Shakespeare, the guy who played Timon was great, and there’s some great Shakespearean insults that made me giggle. However, it was a very uneven cast and not the best show we have ever seen from Cutting Ball. Good, but not great.
The Verdict: If you’re a Shakespeare fan you will probably like it, otherwise maybe sit this one out.
The Drama Talk: Cutting Ball’s production of Timon of Athens has many things we always love about Cutting Ball shows; inventive staging in a small space, some very strong actors, impressive costumes, and a fresh contemporary feel. However, Shakespeare needs actors to really own the language, and not everyone in this cast was up to the task.
The Drinks: In honor of the extravagant lifestyle Timon led we thought we would go to a fancy place to get drinks. We hit up Market street’s newest a rooftop bar (fancy right?) called Charmaines. We probably aren’t swanky enough for it’s swanky atmosphere, and the drinks were not cheap, but it was a fun place to end a night of theater.
Timon of Athens runs through April 29th at Exit on Taylor. Tickets are between $35-$50 and can be purchased on the Cutting Ball Theater website.