Timon of Athens is closing this weekend!

Yes, that's right. After a really great run, Timon of Athens will close this weekend. We only have a few performances left, and who knows when you might see it again (it is, I'm hearing, the first professional production in Boston EVER - though I'm sure there must have been student/non-professional productions of it in the city and/or Cambridge. There's just to many colleges in town for that to be possible. But maybe not! Still, it's pretty exciting!)

I really really hope you can see it, as I think you will enjoy this production very much!

More info: http://www.actorsshakespeareproject.org/

Cheers,

John

Timon of Athens Opens!

We have opened Timon of Athens, and I couldn't be more proud of it: it just looks so beautiful (from the parts I can see when I'm not on stage). Allyn is doing an AMAZING job with the title role, which is a real back-breaker. He makes such sense out this incredibly difficult and dense text, it's a lesson in acting watching him every night. I really love the cast. The design is simply incredible, which I suppose people might come to expect from Jeff, Peter and Anna-Alisa, but they all really out-did themselves here. The real surprise, to me, is what a gorgeous job Bill did as a set designer: it really looks stunning, not only that, it's surprising and so original, and Bill isn't thought of as a set designer, per se. But now he can add that to his list of talents. To think that he did all that AND directed the show so well is really inspiring.

I hope you can come in to see it!

Here's all the info. We have only two weeks left after this!

Timon of Athens
by William Shakespearedirected by Bill Barclay*
May 19 – June 13
Midway Studios Fort Point ChannelMore Information
Featuring: Steven Barkhimer*, Daniel Berger-Jones, Allyn Burrows, Joel Colodner*, Michelle Dowd, John Kuntz*, Will Lyman* & Bobbie Steinbach*.
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or call 866-811-4111 8
*Member of Actors' Equity Association, the union of professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States

"...bringing to life a most-timely story...the Actors' Shakespeare Project succeeds"
-Jonathan Donaldson, The Boston HeraldRead Full Review

"...a staging that impresses from start to finish"- Matt Robinson, JimSullivanInkRead Full Review

"The Timon production is tremendous--truly memorable in every way."
-Audience Member
Clowns

"Timon of Athens is the best play I have ever seen! I am just amazed with what I saw yesterday!"
-Audience Member

Timon Week Three

We are barreling towards tech of Timon!
Very exciting.

I just found out that this will be the Boston premiere of Timon of Athens, I had no idea (I really should read the press releases once in a while...)

It's never been done professionally in this city before, which I find really hard to believe.

I'm also not sure why, exactly: it's not a bad play. It has some definite problems, sure. But it's interesting to watch. The story is quite compelling. It's wildly funny at points. and Strange and heart-breaking. Interesting to see a not well known Shakespeare play, to see him trying new things out, taking big risks as a writer (and he really does, the play is really all over the place at points!)

What is pulling us together is a sense of the difference between the first part of the play and the second part.

Our First Act, which comprises all that happens to Timon until he goes bankrupt, renounces his flattering friends and heads to the wilderness, is quite bright and colorful. A mural, which is referred to quite often at the top of the play, is up: a bright, Kandinsky-inspired piece that echoes the garish nature of Timon's surroundings and clown-like court of flattering buffoons.

Our Second Act is almost a Beckett landscape: the mural has fallen over, becoming a platform on which we stand. The world is now black and gray and vast, expanding back to the far wall that was hidden by the mural. There's even a Godot-esque leafless tree! Likewise, the tone of the play shifts to darkness, brooding and melancholy, as Timon renounces his former materialist life and curses all who come to visit him.

We begin our tech Saturday!

hooked on phonics

As we rehearse Timon, our lovely ASM Laura takes "line notes", meaning she writes down all the lines you missed, flubbed, called out for, stumbled upon, etc. This is a great help for actors who have just put the script down, but are still a little shaky with their lines. I received three or four line notes after our last rehearsal. Unfortunately, I WAS STILL HOLDING THE SCRIPT. This means, sadly, that I can't even READ!

Timon Week Two

Timon is coming along quite well. I am a bit behind on my lines, as I've been buried in finals at BoCo and Suffolk, but school officially ended last night, so I am all set to jump in and get my hair wet, finally.

I'm not so worried, line-wise, anyway: the four "clowns", as I've been calling us, don't have that much to say. And as far as characters go, none of us has a great deal of psychological terrain to machete thru. What's more of a challenge is the "Irma Vep" like way we are expected to play all these different people. We leave and come right back as someone else, so differentiating these people, both physically and vocally, with a style that we all agree on, is the challenge, but one that I find to be great fun, as there's so many ways to go!

The world Bill has created is quite arresting and unique, I think. His inspiration, visually, is the art work of Kandinsky (particularly his "Improvisation" series, above)

and Sol LeWit. The time period is vaguely thirties in style. The gigantic mural that the Artist is working on in the first scene, depicting Timon's ascent towards Fortune on a sleepy Mount, is actually being constructed by all four of us clowns (ie, Steve, Michelle, Joel and me) as our "Painter" characters. We wear white, paint-splattered cover-alls thru out the play, adding/taking away costume elements for each different character, but the idea is that, at our core, we are these omnipresent, rather cosmic painters: we know all and see all, we have a sense of what will happen and go about pulling the strings. We have an eye into the future, and like the painting, can see ahead towards Timon's downfall.

Timon of Athens begins rehearsal

We began our rehearsals for our production of Timon of Athens this week with The Actors Shakespeare Project. Very excited about this play: I love working on obscure Shakespeare plays and I have NEVER seen this one, or even read it until now. Allyn Burrows, our Timon and Artistic Director, even mentioned last night that it's one of the ONLY Shakespeare plays not tackled by the venerable Shakespeare & Company in their long existence (the others were, I believe, The Rape of Lucrece and The Two Noble Kinsmen).

Bill Barclay, who is a long-time collaborator and new company member and very talented actor and musician, is our intrepid director and has wonderful, exciting ideas. Our first rehearsal was a bit unusual in that Bill was stuck in London due to the recent air traffic chaos caused by the eruption of that Icelandic volcano whose name I won't even try to spell...

So our first rehearsal was pretty chill, no directors, no official design presentations (although our costume designer, the wonderful Anna-Alisa Belous showed us some beautiful sketches of the costume design). It was just the actors and the stage managers reading the play and chatting. None of the usual hoopla that accompanies a first rehearsal, and I have to say, I sort of found it wonderful and relaxing!

Bill was back last night, thru some miracle in plane cancellations, luck and tenacity. Right from the airport to our rehearsal. I hope he's sleeping right now!

Timon of Athens is a tricky play. No one is particularly likable in this world, and there is a very interesting shift from the first part of the play (which, to me, reads like a satire - and a very fresh, modern one at that!) and the second part (Timon becomes a hub that is visited by all other characters, the tone changing to a darker color that seems to suit Timon change of fortune and philosophy. It is wildly funny at points, and some truly great curses are thrown around.

Bill has configured it with a cast of 8: four actors playing "immutable" roles (Timon, Apemantus, Alcibiades and Flavius) and a "Chorus" of four actors playing everyone else. I'm one of the chorus, so I get to play a menagerie of flatterers, bandits, servants and jerks, which is always fun!

Now that my teaching schedule is lightening up, I have a bit more time, so I'll try to blog about Timon as we go along, it should be pretty interesting to work on this play, I'm really looking forward to it!