What would you do if you were filthy rich? Would you share it with friends? Would you welcome new friends, attracted by your wealth? How well would you manage your money? And if your generosity saw your debts exceed your capacity to pay … Who would your friends be then? 

This is the territory Timon of Athens traverses. Originally listed with the tragedies, it is now seen as a precursor the Shakespeare’s ‘problem plays’ which deal more with social commentary, blending comical, historical tragical and pastoral elements in the process. Deemed by Oxford Shakespeare scholars to have been written (by William Shakespeare with Thomas Middleton) in 1605, it is invariably dubbed ‘timely’, wherever and whenever it’s done. Which is not often.

Apparently the last and only (until now) production in New Zealand was 150 years ago, at Dunedin’s Princess Theatre – presumably as a timely warning. Also in 1865, Dunedin mounted the first New Zealand Exhibition in an effort to capitalise long-term on the wealth generated by the Otago gold rush. A 21-floor high gilded obelisk, representing the 1,749,511 ounces of gold that had been exported from the colony, greeted visitors on their arrival. (1)

London’s National Theatre revived Timon in 2012, less than a year after the Occupy Wall Street protests began in New York. And right now the turmoil in Athens – as Alexis Tsipras, the new Greek prime minister, struggles to make good his promise to end the austerity while the Eurozone creditors demand satisfaction and people protest Angela Merkel’s attempts to negotiate a deal (2) – brings the story home to Shakespeare’s setting.

It’s unlikely many of New Zealand’s ‘1%’ will brave the elements to see this cautionary tale at The Dell. But who among the rest of us can say we have not aspired to enjoying great wealth? The pure-at-heart can relate with the serving classes and the otherwise disenfranchised and disaffected, and/or simply bask in the opportunity for schadenfreude offered by the story.

Timon’s generosity is exemplified before the play starts when the Summer Shakespeare cast – that is, the servant characters – distribute morsels of food as a gift from the master, to augment the picnics most of us are enjoying. A live band adds to the festive mood and a strangely silent – portentous perhaps? – folky line-dance heralds the play proper. The animal masks will resonate later when Timon is moved to compare and contrast mankind with beasts.

Alana Inglis and Ashleigh Jenner’s angular white-panelled set represents a modern corporate citadel or walled city, and the costumes – designed by Alex Guillott – are highly stylised. The brightly coloured Senators wear pillbox hats and carapaces redolent of cockroaches; the servants wear baggy trousers (a faithful rendition of Japanese Hakama pants); Timon and his fair weather friends exhibit more contemporary fashions that reek of class and ostentation. Timon himself wears a suit of many pinks, and pink colour codes members of his household.  

The gender-changes in this Brett Adam-directed production all make perfect sense, be they women socialites, senators, corporate bigwigs or cynical bystanders, and I applaud the text-changes that accommodate them. Other changes include an old Athenian father becoming the schoolboy brother who seeks Timon’s advice on whether he should allow his nameless and voiceless sister – also a schoolgirl! – to marry Timon’s loyal servant.

Hayden Frost plays Timon straight as a die, conveying a genuine generosity in the good times – “I am not of that feather to shake off / My friend when he must need me” he says, when paying off a debt to get Ventidius out of prison. “Why, I have often wish’d myself poorer, that I might come nearer to you,” he says a bit later, most sincerely. “We are born to do benefits; and what better or properer can we call our own than the riches of our friends?” His bitterness, then, when his freeloading ‘friends’ desert him in the bad times, provides a strong contrast. Indeed such is the range this lead role covers, we can only but wonder that it is not sought-after by actors worldwide.  

Timon’s loyal steward, Flavia (Emma-Yvonne Simons), gains status as the plot unfolds first as the realist unable to convince her master he is living beyond his means – “I bleed inwardly for my lord” – and later as the only person he can trust.  

Apemantus is described on the excellent website www.playshakespeare.com as “a professional cynic, a snarling, nasty man who insults everybody he meets without appearing to derive any pleasure from doing so.” Jean Sergent’s Apemantia, however, is a shrewd observer of the fakery of flattery and the foolishness of Timon’s behaviour, almost taking the role of Fool to the benign and beneficent tycoon.

Also strong in performance and clearly defined in character is Theo Taylor’s Alcibiades, an Athenian army captain and war hero who loses his cool when the Senators – Loren Casbolt, Hamish Boyle, Harriet Dawson and Madhu Ramasubramanian – refuse to stay the execution of a soldier friend (who, it has to be said, killed a civilian in anger). In the 17^th century text Alcibiades leads an military coup against the Senators but here the Occupy Movement is referenced, complete with a placard saying ‘We are the XCLX%’.

Iris Henderson, Jessica Booth and Harriet Dawson give good accounts of a Poet, Painter and Jeweller respectively, and Vincent Wong impresses in his roles. Quite why the Soldier who finds Timon’s self-penned epitaph in the woods has now become a French Backpacker eludes me but Charlotte Pleasants’ performance gives the down-beat ending a welcome lift.

The overall intelligence and vitality of the 24-strong cast is marred only by a smattering of under-projecting the odd outburst of over-acting (it really is counterproductive to ‘loudly’ demonstrate the idea of characters instead of ‘being’ them). This makes me realise how easy it is to take well-centred characterisations and good voice-production for granted, and most of the cast are on the right wavelength. When they trust the text, ungilded, to carry its meaning, it does.  

A burlesque entertainment sequence falls very flat because it’s just not funny to see people performing badly intentionally. Presenting mediocre tricks with great flourish and believing in them whole-heartedly would work much better.

There are good surprises in the set, and Neal Barber’s lighting design counterpoints the waning daylight and illuminates the action and the set well.

The full-cast choral rendition of a beautiful ‘Requiem’ (composed by Brett Adam himself) brings proceedings to an appropriately meditative close. We depart feeling privileged to be the first people in 150 years to see this timely play in New Zealand – an excellent choice for Summer Shakespeare and one that can stand proud as their 32^nd production.

It is a shame that after such a stretch of balmy weather the southerly should choose these days to return but rug up well while that lasts: it’s worth it, and the Dell is relatively sheltered. (The wet weather alternative is Wellington High and any such change of venue will be advised on https://summershakespeare.wordpress.com/ at around 3pm.)
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(1) The Hocken Blog and Te Ara
(2) The Economist

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