BWW EXCLUSIVE: Barry Edelstein & TIMON OF ATHENS

Today we are presenting a correlative conversation to our weekend feature interview with Richard Thomas, the star of The Public Theater Shakespeare LAB's new production of William Shakespeare's TIMON OF ATHENS, with the director of that innovative new take on the troublesome tragedy, Barry Edelstein. Having directed the lauded Public Theater Productions of JULIUS CAESER starring Jeffrey Wright and THE MERCHANT OF VENICE starring Ron Leibman, in addition to producing this season's smash hit Broadway revival starring Al Pacino, and also taking into account all of his notable work at the Classic Stage Company, Edelstein is one of the foremost American Shakespeare directors in the twenty-first century. Discussing what makes TIMON tick, what makes Shakespeare always relevant to modern audiences and the power of the poetry implicit in each and every Shakespeare play - no matter how obscure - Edelstein was generous enough to impart some of his vast knowledge and acute understanding of the greatest dramatist the English language has ever known.

Man Made Myth

PC: Could you give the audience who may not be familiar with TIMON OF ATHENS an idea of why now is the perfect time to see it and what you are setting out to do with the Shakespeare LAB series?

BE: The Public has had this program called the Public LAB for four years now. It was invented as a way to give new plays a chance to go into full production in a scaled down, small scale way - rather than commit the plays to a series of readings and workshops. Because, you know, that's what happens - those endless cycles of readings and workshops where there never is a final production that opens.

PC: Happens more often than not.

BE: Exactly. So, the Public says, "Let's figure out a way to produce plays in a different and less expensive way so authors can hear their work actually produced and not just hear it in a reading." So, that gave birth to this thing called Public LAB.

PC: So, why Shakespeare, then?

BE: Well, the original idea was to include Shakespeare so that directors or actors with interesting ideas on Shakespeare - or anyone who had a novel take on Shakespeare - might be able to do it in a small scale way that wouldn't require the sort of huge main-stage resources that a bigger production would. Now, four years later, we have been able to build the infrastructure inside this theater to be able to include Shakespeare in this Public LAB's program.

PC: What was the process of selecting the plays?

BE: Well, having decided we were going to do Shakespeare in the Public LAB, the question really was, "Which one are we gonna do?"

PC: So many great choices!

BE: You've got that right. Really, what happened with selecting TIMON was, in 2008, when the financial crisis hit, Oskar Eustis sat down with the artistic staff here and said, "What plays should we be producing about this seismic event that has hit New York and hit this country and hit the world?" So, since I run the Shakespeare department, I said, "Well, Shakespeare has got two plays about money: one is MERCHANT OF VENICE and one is TIMON OF ATHENS." So, immediately, we said that those were the two plays we had to do.

PC: Apropos choices, both, to be sure.

BE: We have MERCHANT, which started in the Park and is now on Broadway and is closing this week [it closed Sunday]. Then, we also made a commitment to do TIMON. You know, even more than MERCHANT, there is no play more about what is going on in this credit crunch world.

PC: It's so prescient and so ahead of its time - even economically. Shakespeare knew where we were headed.

BE: Totally. Scarily so.

PC: MERCHANT is such an amazing production - maybe the best.

BE: It is an amazing production. We are all so proud of it.

PC: Pacino is unbelievable in it. What is he like?

BE: He's so alive onstage, yet he's so demure in person.

PC: Tell me about working with Richard Thomas on TIMON. How are previews going?

BE: It's going really well. We are all tremendously excited about it.

PC: Tell me about the history of the play - wasn't it originally written to be performed at inns?

BE: So they say - but even that is speculative. There is no real evidence that it was ever performed at the Globe or the Black Friars or at any of the public playhouses. What we do know is that it was rushed into publication into the First Folio.

PC: How fascinating.

BE: There are so many problems with the text. As you probably know, there are many reasons why that could be the case: Shakespeare abandoned it halfway through and it was completed by someone else; or, Shakespeare collaborated on it with someone else; or, Shakespeare took someone else's first draft and polished it up and put his name on it. Short of going into a time machine and going back to his time, there's just no way to know for sure. But, most of the thinking focuses on this guy namEd Thomas Middleton.

PC: What can you tell me about him?

BE: Well, he was one of Shakespeare's contemporaries. The best thinking about his involvement was that it was a collaborative effort between Middleton and Shakespeare - and you can feel that throughout the play. You know, there are dead ends and you can feel threads that are dropped halfway through and incredible shifts of tone.

PC: How do you deal with that as an adaptor and director?

BE: All I've basically done is what people have always done in the stage history of TIMON OF ATHENS, which is: a little bit of cutting and a little bit of rearranging and moving things around to try and make the dramatic arc that is buried in this very flawed text a little bit easier to see. And, that's exactly what we have done.

PC: A little moving of furniture, but no major renovations though, right?

BE: No, no. I mean, I haven't written scenes or anything like that! (Laughs.)

PC: I'm assuming most of the cuts are going to come in Act II and III and the sequences usually credited to Middleton.

BE: Yep. That's right. I have really thinned it out there in those sections. Where you get Shakespeare just roaring out is in the phenomenal sequence in Timon's cave, which is as good as anything in Shakespeare - better than many things in Shakespare.

PC: Does that sequence bring to mind LEAR to you, as well?

BE: It does. It definitely does. I was just about to say that it really reminds one of the Dover Cliffs scene in LEAR. This play has a lot of LEAR in it and a lot of MERCHANT in it. But, also, this play has a lot of the Sonnets in it, which is really surprising.

PC: The sonnets, really? Please elaborate.

BE: Well, there's this thing in the play about what Timon is doing by giving all this money away. You know, he is constantly giving his money away and prolifically spending and gifting and throwing his money aside. It's very much like the poet in the Sonnets whose currency is metaphor. He spends and spends and spends in exactly the same way. Whereas metaphoric expenditure is the way the poet expresses love in the Sonnets; in Timon, financial expenditure is how Timon expresses love. The two are very clearly linked. After all, the Sonnets were published right around the same time as TIMON was written. It's not an original idea to me and a lot of people have commented that there is this connection between TIMON and the Sonnets.

PC: That's mind-blowing for those who are familiar with both. Truly.

BE: Yeah, it really is. I think you see it, especially with Richard in the role. One of the amazing things about Richard is he is a very romantic figure and he cuts a real dash onstage. He has a real emotional sensibility. You can imagine him sitting at home and writing the Sonnets, just pouring out this extraordinary flood of emotion and invention and imagination. You get that from the way he gives himself away and how he spends himself away. It has a lushness and, like, a nineteenth century Romantic feeling to it.

PC: Is this the first time you have worked together?

BE: Yes, this is the first time we have worked together.

PC: Had you seen him onstage before?

BE: I saw Richard play RICHARD II in Washington, D.C. in the 90s.

PC: RICHARD II, really?

BE: Yes, second, not third. I've actually written about it in one of my books - about how it remains one of the ten best performances of Shakespeare I have ever seen. It was a masterful performance. It's so vivid that I still feel like I just saw it last night. I can still hear him do it. He was brilliant.

PC: I've never even seen RICHARD II onstage. It's done even less than TIMON!

BE: Oh my God, I really wish that production was recorded. It was mind-blowing.

PC: What is the moment that stays with you still?

BE: Oh, the whole "Soot upon the ground" speech. I remember him in a long wig in a beautiful green robe sitting on the ground crying his eyes and his heart out. It was just wrenching.

PC: So, it's safe to say you were a fast fan of his, then?

BE: Definitely. I just felt like, "I have to work with this guy!" The thing that is amazing about it is that his television fame sort of masks a hugely accomplished life in the classical theatre. He's done so, so, so much - Shakespeare and Ibsen and so much stuff.

PC: And Albee and Mamet and Richard Greenberg, too!

BE: He can do it all.

PC: He has taken on such a wide swath of roles.

BE: He's a giant. Not only is he a giant talent, he's a giant in the rehearsal room, too. You know, he's like an old-school leading man: he comes in and says hello to everybody. He gets along with the young actors and the older actors. He's a complete inspiration to everybody. He's exactly what you want in your leading man, on and offstage.

PC: That's some high praise!

BE: It's funny because Reg. E. Cathey said to me at the end of Sunday night, after six ten-out-of-twelves, when we are all just limping around: "The guy comes in and he makes you want to work hard." (Pause.) You know, he just makes everyone around him want to work hard. You know, we have tried to get him at the Public time and time again. He's done the Park, but it's such a privilege to get him in the building and have him working downtown.

PC: So, this is an all-male production of TIMON, correct? No actresses as the whores with no speaking parts?

BE: Nope.

PC: Where did that decision come from?

BE: I'll tell you the truth, I just can't imagine sitting there and casting women to tell them that they are playing strippers and whores and then that's it. I don't really get it.

PC: How do you get around it?

BE: Well, I didn't think that having strippers come in and dance would be the best way to deal with that scene, either. So, I just thought that there was something about the world of men and money and brandy snifters and cigars - of which there are none in this production, but you get my drift - it just feels like a male world. It's like going to rehearsal with a baseball team. It's a lot of fun.

PC: Shakespeare meets MAD MEN!

BE: Yeah, it's a boys' club type thing.

PC: Do you have any news about CORIOLANUS coming up at the Public? The trailer for the film version starring Gerard Butler and Ralph Fiennes just premiered and Liev Schreiber himself recently told me he wants to do the role at the Public. The time for CORIOLANUS has arrived, hasn't it?

BE: I can't tell you what I know about stuff that's currently in development, I'm sorry. (Laughs.)

PC: It's the hot-button Shakespeare play, I think.

BE: I know. I think you're right. And, rightly so, given what's going on in the world.

PC: Can you tell me anything about what's coming up?

BE: I'm so sorry, I wish I could tell you everything! What I can tell you is that this season we are doing four Shakespeare plays at the Public - two in the Park, TIMON, and our mobile unit that we take to prisons and homeless shelters. That's the first time that the Public has done four Shakespeares since Joe Papp's Shakespeare marathon ended in the early nineties. Next year, potentially, there will be more than four. So, there is just an explosion of Shakespeare activity. The creation of the Public LAB and the mobile unit and the rep in the park are making these new platforms for us to do these plays in a sustained, ongoing and deep way. I think - at least, I hope - that our audiences will come to recognize that we are investing more and more resources and more and more energy in trying to make this internationally excellent.

PC: I wish the Shakespeare In the Park productions could be filmed - my favorite Shakespeare production of all time is the LEAR with James Earl Jones from the Park in the 70s (availible on DVD). Are there any plans to record any of the ones coming up?

BE: I know. The thing is that it's a very complicated thing because of all the financial and legal issues. We do talk about filming them a lot, though.

PC: Tell me about the Park productions coming up.

BE: We are doing ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL directed by Daniel Sullivan and MEASURE FOR MEASURE directed by David Esbjornson.

PC: Esbjornson and MEASURE is a match made in heaven.

BE: It is going to be tremendous. And, again, it will be one cast doing both shows, as we did last summer. I think it's going to really be something great.

PC: I hope TIMON transfers. Broadway is ready - desperate, really.

BE: It's time!

PC: Thank you so much for this today, Barry. This was so informative. All my best to you and the cast.

BE: Thank you, too, Pat. We all really appreciate your support. Bye bye.