Review: Cross Gender TIMON OF ATHENS from Seattle Shakes' Drags with Little Stakes

If you're going to put up Shakespeare (or any play really) with a different time or locale or, as is the case with the current Seattle Shakespeare Company production of "Timon of Athens", with cross gender casting then have a reason for it. Have the shakeup mean something. With cross gender stuff, it can be as simple as wanting to give the female actors of the area a chance to play the meatier parts since Shakespeare is traditionally light on those for women. But if that is your reasoning, and I suspect it was in this case no matter what the program says (but we'll get to that in a minute) then be well sure that you put up an engaging production especially with a seldom done play (and for good reason) such as "Timon of Athens". Unfortunately, the minor cross casting here lent nothing to this production and the production itself suffered from a dreadful droning pace in a play that already has the tendency to drone.

If you're unfamiliar with "Timon of Athens" it's not surprising since it's never done. The last production I saw was about 20 years ago. In it the wealthy Athenian Timon (Mary Ewald) likes nothing more than to lavish gifts and sumptuous banquets on his friends. But he does this so much that suddenly he finds himself in quite a bit of debt. He entreats his wealthy friends (many of whom have become wealthy due to his generosity) to help him out but all reject his pleas and he becomes destitute and wandering the woods for scraps. While there he finds a chest of gold but by this point he has come to despise gold feeling it the cause of his situation and so he uses it to persuade others to bring down those that abandoned him.

Director John Kazanjian states in the program that he was dissatisfied with the way women were treated in the play, noting "that there are no female-identified characters in "Timon of Athens" with the exception of some sex workers", and that's why he chose to cast the two most powerful characters in the play with women, Timon played by Ewald and the General Alcibiades played by Julie Briskman, in order to turn the power dynamic on its head. However, the women are playing men of the era so there is no shift in power dynamic unless you assume female actors are less powerful than male ones. So, what it boils down to is giving women a chance to play these roles. Fine, but unlike recent all female shows like those from Upstart Crow we only have two cross cast roles here so the gimmick or point of women playing men is there but whereas Upstart Crow committed to it, here they just kind of nodded at it especially when you see that the aforementioned sex workers in the play were still played by women. If you're going to mix it up then commit.

Ewald and Briskman do fine in the roles as does everyone in the play, however the pace of the piece is so static as to lull you to sleep. Adding into that the constant repetition of the piece and lack of any real stakes it never really goes anywhere. You may say that I'm not taking issue with the production but with Shakespeare and the play and they cannot help that but they can. It's not unheard of to cut down a bit of Shakespeare and since they tacked a monologue on power delivered by Ewald at the very top of the show, that I'm fairly certain was not written by the Bard, I don't see they would have a problem there. A monologue I may add that immediately took me out of the play as it used modern language and only made me wonder why I was hearing it.

So, what we're left with are decent performances with little pace or stakes in a play that has trouble getting to the point. With those elements I can only give, with my three-letter rating system, the rating akin to what my theater companion and I felt as we left the theater, MEH. A play that needed more than women to make it work.

"Timon of Athens" from Seattle Shakespeare Company" performs at the Center Theatre through February 4th. For tickets or information contact the Seattle Shakespeare Company box office at 206-733-8222 or visit them online at www.seattleshakespeare.org.

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