Jordan Wright
May 10, 2017
Dinner at the home of Timon. Pictured left to right: Michael Dix Thomas, Sean Fri, Kathryn Tkel, Ian Merrill Peakes (center, as Timon), Andhy Mendez, Louis Butelli, and Maboud Ebrahimzadeh (with Eric Hissom top left). – Photo by Teresa Wood
In the high-tech world of fingerprint readers and cell phones, venture capitalists and politicians, Timon collects friends of all stripes. From artists and philosophers to shop owners and Senators, he entertains them lavishly with Lucullan banquets and gifts of gold and jewels. “More welcome are you to my fortunes, than they to me,” he says, oozing beneficence from every pore. Is he seeking favor, or merely attempting to keep his friends close and his enemies closer?
Timon of Athens is a tragedy so seldom performed that audiences may be unfamiliar with it. It is often snubbed by scholars, which is a pity, for I found some of Shakespeare’s richest prose in this play. Director Robert Richmond imagines Timon (Ian Merrill Peakes) as a sharkskin suit-sporting businessman enjoying unfettered loyalty from his peers and associates and reveling in their idolatry. But when friendship comes through financial generosity, is it true?
Cupid (John Floyd) and dancers Phrynia (Aliyah Caldwell, left) and Timandra (Amanda Forstrom) entertain Timon and his party guests – Photo by Teresa Wood
We soon discern that only two members of Timon’s coterie are his true friends – Apemantus (Eric Hissom), who delights in bursting Timon’s utopian bubble regarding his fair weather friends, and Flavius (Antoinette Robinson) his faithful servant, whose warnings of his imminent financial ruin fall on deaf ears.
Timon’s downfall doesn’t come without a challenge to the friends who deserted him. He invites them to a banquet where they arrive believing that he has regained his fortunes. They believe they will again be the recipients of his fortune and are off the hook for abandoning him. But Timon, who has seen the light and wants payback, serves up a tureen of excrement to his unsuspecting guests. “I’m sick of this false world,” he confesses.
Banished Alcibiades (Maboud Ebrahimzadeh, left) confronts his old companion Timon (Ian Merrill Peakes) – Photo by Teresa Wood
Throughout his emotional turmoil, Athens’ war is raging and Matt Otto’s soundtrack of the rat-a-tat-tat of machine gunfire reminds us of Timon’s precarious state and Greece’s uncertain future.
Francesca Talenti’s clever use of a slim band of video projections to introduce the characters is a novel and much appreciated approach to remembering who’s who. Seeing their names along with their professions projected above their heads as they enter the scene is useful when seeing an unfamiliar play. It’s later used by Timon as a video selfie when he is reflecting on his life during his darkest hour.
“Undone by goodness.” Ian Merrill Peakes as Timon of Athens – Photo by Teresa Wood
Scenic Designer Tony Cisek turns the theater’s English Tudor style into a sleek modernistic set with multiple entries and a two-level balconied catwalk, perfect for spouting edicts or watching your own destruction.
I can’t say enough about Peakes’ boundless energy, his superb ability veer from joy to pathos, as Timon goes from wealth and generosity to the madness of poverty, loneliness and utter despair. The entire cast is wonderful. I could see this play again and again.
I don’t give out stars, so I’ll just lend them. All five to this stellar production. See it!
Through June 11th at the Folger Theatre at the Folger Shakespeare Library, 201 East Capitol Street, SE, Washington, DC 20003. For tickets and information call 202 544-7077 or visit www.Folger.edu/theatre.