Timon of Athens

Wealthy Athenian Timon spreads his wealth generously and hold parties. After giving all his wealth away, he discovers his so-called friends only cared about his wealth. He spends his remaining days in a cave. Shakespeare borrowed from other sources to create this work, and critics attribute portions to other authors. It's not among Shakespeare's best efforts.

Plutarch tells us that Timon was a noted misanthrope, of legendary proportions in Athens during the Peloponnesian war. Shakespeare uses this simple idea to write a very acerbic play about how most of one's friends are really convenient acquaintances already to share in good times but not willing to help in times of need. After losing or giving away his money, Timon leaves Athens for the woods, and once there he makes a fortuitous gold strike which he uses to fund Alcibiades successful capture of the city. Then he dies, unhappy with his experience with the bulk of mankind.

This is a weird one for me. I'm basically slowly plowing through the various plays and I'm the first to admit that I'm quite ignorant on the world of Shakespeare. I see others commenting on how this was a collaboration with Middleton and I think...who the hell's Middleton?

I think it should be noted that, as I (far too rapidly) approach my sixth decade on the planet, I decided to right a wrong from high school. That is, to come at Shakespeare's works with no expectations, just to enjoy them, to love the language, and let them wash over me as they will. Because in high school, Mr. Elsie (who looked remarkably like an undernourished G.I. Joe action figure...think G.I. Joe Inaction Figure) had us autopsy a couple of Shakespeare's plays, flaying virtually every scene and demanding that we wring out every ounce of subtext and meaning we could either glean or simply make up to appease the teacher enough to award a respectable, if ultimately disappointing grade. In short, he killed all enjoyment of Shakespeare's works for me, an avid reader even then.

So here I am, four decades later, coming at them and mostly enjoying them. Which is a long way back around to this particular play.

Supposedly this is a comedy, and while it held some smirkable lines, it didn't have me laughing out loud as some of his earlier works did. It's not quite a tragedy, yet Timon cuts a rather tragic figure.

And of all of Shakespeare's works, I'll admit to literally never having heard of this one until I started working on his entire output of work. And ultimately, while it's not my favourite by any means, I did enjoy Shakespeare's take on the "no good deed goes unpunished" theme.

Wow. Okay, that was just awful. Gives Edward III serious competition in the race to the bottom. It's like someone said to Shakespeare, “Bet you can't make a more unlikeable protagonist than Titus Andronicus,” and Shakespeare said, “Oh yeah? Here, hold my ale!”Timon has the good fortune to be born to wealth and position in Athens, and manages to blow through absolutely all of his money by endlessly playing the “Lord Bountiful,” ignoring the protests of his more sensible steward, glorying in the flattery and sycophantic sucking up of toadies. Where he might be sympathetic as an “excessively compassionate” sort if he gave away all his money to people in real need, Timon's generosity seems to be directed mostly at comfortably well-off friends. He hauls out his jewel chest at parties, ostentatiously handing out gems as party favors, and, remembering that a friend admired the horse he was riding recently, announces “'Tis yours, because you lik'd it.” He's maybe a step away from lighting his cigars with $100 bills. Until the funds are all gone. And, shocker, his buddies no longer care about him. Who, in the noble Timon's estimation, is to blame for his downfall? Himself, perhaps, and his own reckless irresponsibility? His friends, who enjoyed his largesse but don't want to help him when he's in trouble? Nope. ALL MANKIND. That's who's to blame. All the women, maidens, toddlers, infants, slaves, old men, etc. of Athens. ”Spare not the babe, whose dimpled smiles from fools exhaust their mercy; think it a bastard, whom the oracle hath doubtfully pronounc'd the throat shall cut, and mince it sans remorse. Swear against objects, put armor on thine ears and on thine eyes, whose proof nor yells of mothers, maids, nor babes, nor sight of priests in holy vestments bleeding, shall pierce a jot.”There are a few amusing exchanges, and Timon's steward is a lovely, devoted fellow who does his level best, but his master is an idiot and a jerk. This is a relatively short play, but it sure felt like it went on forever.

I could see that I had arrived at the autumn of the Bard's career when I reached his collaborations with hacks.I would like to think that the parts of the play I didn't like were the work of the hack. I assume that he was responsible for the Alcibades scenes reading like some schoolboy was doing an adaptation of Coriolanus as an classroom assignment or the perfunctory setup of Timon's future woes or the dimwitted idea of having the hero die off-stage. By contrast, I credit the Bard with the stinging reproaches ("Uncover, dogs, and lap") and the magnificent rants (and the Bard can rant) and the unmasking of fraud and hypocrisy (take that, poet and painter). A bad play with great moments.P.S. I just realized what it really lacked - no strong women characters!?

Timon is a wealthy man who is happy to help his friends whenever they need him. He loans money without a second thought, helping one man marry the woman he loves and another pay off an outstanding debt. Soon the tables turn on Timon and he finds himself out of funds and in need of help. He soon discovers that fickle friends disappear when the coffers runs dry. He ends up exiled in the woods, disillusioned and angry.As is the case with many of Shakespeare’s lesser known plays, this one shares themes and plot points with some of his more successful work. There are so many similarities with King Lear, the popular character becoming a friendless outcast, betrayal by those who are meant to be his truest supporters. Both plays also have one supporter who remains loyal to the title character: Cordelia (the daughter) in King Lear and Flavius (the steward) in Timon. Lear makes many of the same basic points in a more powerful way. There were also a few spots that reminded me of Coriolanus, including the banished character aiding an enemy force in attacking his former home. Timon of Athens feels a bit disjointed. The first half is cheerful and optimistic, but once he is deserted by his friends and living in the woods it takes on a much darker tone. Scholars have apparently attributed this to a joint authorship. I have no idea if that’s true, but with the flow of the story it certainly makes sense. BOTTOM LINE: Not one of my favorites, but another insight into Shakespeare’s development as a playwright. I love seeing him hone his skills in different works and seeing the many factors that affect whether that play will fail or succeed. I would love to see this one performed live. “The moon's an arrant thief, And her pale fire she snatches from the sun.”“Lips, let sour words go by and language end:What is amiss plague and infection mend!Graves only be men's works and death their gain!Sun, hide thy beams! Timon hath done his reign.” 

I read this because it was heavily referenced in Pale Fire and I see the thematic link there regarding exile - I guess I should re-read Pale Fire again having read it but I never re-read anything. Anyway, it's actually pretty good. According to wikipedia it's one of the Shakespear plays that don't fit as cleanly in the comedy/tragedy division as the others - conventional wisdom is supposed to be that it's a tragedy, but personally I'd describe it as more of a black comedy. So of course I like it. I love the climax, where in one last grandiose gesture Timon lets Athens know who it can go fuck (itself), and how Apemantus's presence in the story finally builds to and culminates in a lengthy scene where he and the protagonist go at it full-bore line for line for multiple pages. Also, Alcibiades is in it! Although disappointingly he's apparently this stock-character Alcibiades originating in Plato instead of the lovable scampini I remember from Thucydides (seriously, it seems like a totally different guy).

I normally wouldn’t read another Shakespeare play so soon after taking a class on the Bard, but this May I happened to be going to the Windy City while Ian McDiarmid was performing Timon of Athens with the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, so I decided to read the play before going to see it. Because I read so quickly and uncritically, and because I saw the play so soon afterward, I’m having a difficult time separating text from performance in my mind, but I’ll try to do my best.Many have compared Timon to King Lear, and it’s not terribly surprising considering that many of the tropes in this play recur in King Lear: the self-centered protagonist, the proliferation of two-faced flatterers, the faithful servant, stirrings of civil war, various banishments and self-banishments. What I’ve often heard hinted at, but never stated outright, is this small truth: Timon is the poor man’s Lear. It is a decent play, not a great one. Current scholarship holds that Shakespeare collaborated on the play with Thomas Middleton, which makes sense because there’s quite a stylistic shift between the frenetic scenes in Timon’s Athenian home and his melancholy, elegiac asylum in the woods. I can say from experience that the first half plays better while the rest reads better, but the first three acts or so are more entertaining in either format. This is odd because I think I read somewhere that Middleton was probably responsible for the first two to three acts, after which Shakespeare continued in a less enjoyable fashion. I guess his heart wasn’t in it. Maybe he was just using the opportunity to warm up for King Lear.There is one truly great moment in the play: Act III scene 6, wherein Timon invites his false friends to yet another of his feasts, serves them only stones and hot water, then proceeds to chase them out. It’s thrilling both to read and behold (in the right production). The problem is that, after this and his great soliloquy in Act IV scene 1, Timon has nowhere to go as a character. He just continues hating humanity to the exact same degree, not developing in either direction. The ending is not quite as bleak as King Lear—there is a sense that society will continue lumbering on—but it is perhaps Shakespeare’s most cynical.The highly abridged two-act version that I saw at Chicago Shakespeare Theater is probably about the best this play can get. It was reset to the present day, something I don’t usually care for, but in this case it was incredibly effective. The cuts were nicely chosen, although I wish we had seen more of Flavius early on. And the acting was excellent. Ian McDiarmid (Emperor Palpatine for you Star Wars geeks) has incredible range and energy, not to mention a powerful voice, and it was a pleasure to view his craft at such close quarters, on a simple thrust stage. Sean Fortunato as Flavius matched him line for line. Alcibiades and Apemantus were among the weakest of the ensemble, regrettable since those are among the most important roles in the play. The last 20 minutes before the intermission, including Timon’s shunning of his friends and his leavetaking of Athens, made for theatrical magic; unfortunately, the director wasn’t able to do much with the scene's of Timon’s solitude, and I simply disliked the ending, which showed Flavius taking Timon’s place in society, with the flatterers and false friends flocking to him. Though it underlined the cynicism of the play, I thought it was out of character for Flavius to befriend the men who ruined his master, and whom he described as “monstrous.” I suppose he could only be pretending to befriend them, with the intent of avenging Timon, but I never thought him in any way vengeful, either.I don't think I’ll ever return to Timon of Athens, but I’m glad I read it, and even happier that I saw the CST production. A part of me still wishes McDiarmid had been playing Lear or Prospero instead, though, which indicates what I think of the play in relation to the rest of the canon.

Certainly not one of William Shakespeare's best works... I can understand why "Timon of Athens" is rarely staged. It is thought to be a collaboration between Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton -- which may be why the play feels really uneven -- as if different parts were written by different people and patched together later.The plot is fairly simplistic -- Timon, an Athenian lord is so anxious to spread his wealth around to his friends that he eventually runs out of money and has to sell all of his lands. He becomes bitter after hearing the variety of excuses his friends provide for not helping him out in his financial need. There is a subplot involving a march into Athens by a soldier, but it wasn't particularly well developed (or else I had difficulty following it, I'm not sure which was the case.)The action in the play is very slow and the plot is a bit too simplistic to keep things interesting. I'd recommend this one only to Shakespeare completists.

Stylistically and thematically Timon is like Lear only less so. In the first act Timon generously gives away money to everyone around him, but at the end of the act his steward Flavius lets us know that he’s not as rich as he seems. In the second act his bankruptcy goes public, and people begin to turn down his requests for money. He invites all his “friends” to a banquet of warm water in the third act. He goes into the wilderness, shedding clothes and raging at ingratitude like Lear, and his faithful steward follows, again like Lear. There are static encounters between Timon and various people—Athenian senators, bandits, and so on. Timon and Apemantus the misanthropic philosopher argue over which of them hates the world more and why. After Timon dies, his friend Alcibiades enters Athens (which he’d been besieging since the senators refused to pardon one of his soldiers) as the new leader.