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by William Shakespeare, directed by Stephen Ouimette

Stratford Festival, Tom Patterson Theatre, Stratford

June 5-September 25, 2004

"Donaldson Triumphs in Timon"

Few fans of Shakespeare, if any, would claim “Timon of Athens” as their favourite play.  It is one of Shakespeare most cynical, most schematic and least compromising works.  Yet, for those very reasons it also seems very modern.  Director Stephen Ouimette’s updating of the play to the present capitalizes on this.  A stellar performance by Peter Donaldson in the title role plus fine work from the rest of the cast make this the best of the three Shakespeare productions now playing in Stratford.

The play is like a more mundane version of “King Lear”.  Timon, a wealthy nobleman of Athens, is renowned for his generosity.  Rather than giving his kingdom away to his daughters in one fell swoop like Lear, Timon has been giving away his wealth in the form of gifts and lavsih parties to his friends over a period of years.  Like Lear, Timon mistakes the friendship professed to him as real, rather than seeing the greed his largesse has spawned.  When Timon discovers he is bankrupt, he assumes his friends will help him, but, like Goneril and Regan, Timon’s supposed friends reveal their true natures, refuse to help and allow him to fall into poverty.  Outraged at the hypocrisy of mankind and railing at the world in general, Timon leaves Athens to live in the desert where his stinging rebukes thrust all visitors away.  The play’s abrupt conclusion has suggested to many that it was left unfinished.

The play neatly falls into two contrasting halves--the first filled with opulence and populated with groups of Timon’s friends, servants and hangers-on culminating in an orgiastic party, the second barren and desolate, structured as a seemingly random series of isolated visits by individuals to Timon’s cave.  The team of designers, Lorenzo Savoini (set), Dana Osborne (costumes) and Bonnie Beecher (lighting) have underscored this contrast by casting the first half in cool blues versus the yellows and earth tones of the second.  Significantly, the two characters who do not fit into the colour scheme of the first half are Alcibiades, a soldier who incurs exile and becomes so disillusioned with Athens he leads a rebellion against it, and the philosopher Apemantus, whose cynical view of society anticipates the perspective Timon will adopt. 

Though it has a cast of 27, “Timon” stand or falls depending on the actor in the title role.  As Timon, Peter Donaldson gives a great performance, indeed one of the best he has ever given.  In the first half he captures the ambiguity of man who, even before we learn of his finances, is truly generous to a fault.  The fault is not merely in giving away too much money or in thinking his gift-giving will create friendship but in thinking he can control the world (his friends) through his actions.  Donaldson’s demeanour and the glint in his eye suggest that Timon does not merely enjoy the happiness his wealth creates in others but is also proud of his power, a factor crucial in relating this play to tragedy. 

Unlike Lear, Timon receives the blows he suffers not with immediate rage but with a slow-burn, Donaldson masterfully evoking a combination of disbelief and anger, that finally flares out at the mocking anti-dinner party he gives his false friends. The play’s episodic second half consists almost entirely of Timon’s bitter invective against the world.  Ouimette and Donaldson know how to use the comedy in Timon’s game-playing with his visitors to vary this torrent of vented spleen.  Donaldson paces himself, rising to a peak of rage during Apemantus’ visit, before gradually subsiding.  Frequently one hears the authoritative ring of William Hutt’s voice in Donaldson’s making one think that perhaps this is the actor who will be his heir.

Donaldson is supported by an excellent cast.  Bernard Hopkins is moving as Flavius, Timon’s faithful steward, the Kent of the play, stricken by both extremes of his master’s behaviour.  He makes Flavius our one example of selflessness that contradicts Timon’s blanket condemnation of humanity.  Tom McCamus is perfect as Apemantus, framed as a kind of leftist student, whose cynicism may be true but is not based on personal experience.  The debate between Apemantus and Timon in the second part over who has more right to be outraged is as intriginng as it is funny.  Yet, beneath it all McCamus shows the hurt Apemantus feels at being rejected by someone who should now be his comrade.     

Timon’s three best “friends” are each repellent in his own way.  Ron Kennell’s unctuous Lucullus encounters Timon’s request for money with annoyed disbelief.  Roger Forbes hearty Sempronius when asked becomes sanctimonious.  And best of all, metrosexual Robert Persichini in the midst of a facial answers the request with smug distaste.

         

Sean Arbuckle is a stalwart Alcibiades, though his delivery of his key speech defending a soldier accused of murder is so garbled an important point is lost.  The same lack of clarity taints Andrew Muir’s first speech as the Poet which sets up the entire action as a fable, a pitfall Jamie Robinson as the Painter avoids.

Stephen Ouimette joins the illustrious company of Michael Langham and Robin Phillips as a director who has been able to make this difficult play a success.  He builds tension throughout the first half that subtly makes obvious that Timon’s generosity and its effects are not wholly admirable.  The veil falls after Timon’s first dinner party when the guests join the invited female entertainers in a frenzied bacchannale choreographed by Nicola Pantin to Tom Jones’s 1988 hit “Kiss”.  When Timon leaves Athens for the desert, Ouimette gives us the sounds of a storm brewing, thus reinforcing the play’s parallel with “Lear”.  In the second half Ouimette uses Beckett-like silences to create tension in the bleak landscape Timon inhabits.  Timon may not have been able to keep his old friends, but Ouimette’s clear-sighted vision will likely win the play new ones.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

Photo: Peter Donaldson as Timon. ©2004 Richard Bain.