Timon of Athens (Vol. 89) | Financial Times (review date 27 August 1999)

Financial Times (review date 27 August 1999)

SOURCE: “Athenian Problem Play Tails Off with Bitterness.” Financial Times (27 August 1999): 12.

[In the following review, the critic emphasizes the shortcomings of Gregory Doran's 1999 Royal Shakespeare Company production of Timon of Athens as well as the shortcomings of Shakespeare's original play.]

“What a dreadfully dull play,” remarked the gent behind me to his companion on exiting the theatre. Whilst I would not go nearly as far as that, nevertheless an air of incompleteness hangs over Timon Of Athens: there is no record of its performance during Shakespeare's lifetime, and scholars speculate that it may be a draft or an incomplete collaborative work. The RSC has implicitly acknowledged its problematic nature, in that Gregory Doran's production is the company's first of the play since 1980.

Doran maintains a tone of campy exuberance through the first...

[The entire page is 602 words long]

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