Sunday, April 18, 2021

534. TIMON OF ATHENS. From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975

Marco St. John, Shepperd Strudwick. (Photos: Friedman-Abeles.)

TIMON OF ATHENS [Dramatic Revival] A: William Shakespeare; D: Gerald Freedman; S: Ming Cho Lee; C: Theoni V. Aldredge; L: Martin Aronstein; M: Jonathan Tunick; CH: Joyce Trisler; P: New York Shakespeare Festival; T: Delacorte Theatre (OB); 6/25/71-7/18/71 (19)

Michael Dunn, Shepperd Strudwick.

Unproduced in 20th-century New York until this version, Timon of Athens starred Shepperd Strudwick in the title role. Its critical reception made it unlikely there would be many major revivals in the years immediately following, at least locally. Only Michael Dunn, a dwarf actor, who played Apemantius, came off well. Everyone else shared the opprobrium with which the play and direction were assailed.

Marco St. John, Shepperd Strudwick.

Clive Barnes lashed out at the “tedious” drama and its boring hero, a combination producing “the dullest of dogs” as its offspring. The acting, verse-speaking, and directorial fiddling were awful, he claimed, with Strudwick being seriously miscast. Walter Kerr’s response to this drama about a man who starts out a philanthropist and ends up a misanthrope was to reject it as “a disheartening business, a venture that must go steadily downhill. . . . I have rarely seen a production in Central Park so unsure of its pictorial effects, so grasping after nonexistent straws . . . , so without power to shape scenes.” John Simon, critical of what he believes an “unfinished” work, felt the production had made matters worse by injudicious cutting (including the only two female characters).

Marco St. John was Alcibiades, and Norman Snow and Sam Tsoutsouvas of the Acting Company each had two small roles, but, unlike most of the Shakespeare in the Park productions of then and now, few actors of wide name recognition were involved.

Nest up: To Be or Not to Be--What Kind of a Question Is That?