Summary 
Strikingly visual modernization plays as an anti-capitalism piece, with a decadent male power network that swills liquor, smokes cigars, paws at strippers and accepts extravagant big-business handouts. The lead role is played as a charming and wealthy lobbyist who, rejected in a time of financial need, becomes an urban outcast living off the streets. Sharply focused and as entertaining as it can be, considering the lengthy, relentless, and angrily misanthropic nature of the text.
Design
Directed by Michael Bogdanov. Designed by Ralph Koltai. Lights by Anne Militello. Sound by Robert Neuhaus. Music by Alaric Jans.
Cast
Daniel Allar (Alcibiades), Brad Armacost (Sempronius), Peter Aylward (Lucullus), Patrick Clear (Flavius), David Darlow (Apemantus), Sean Fortunato (Caphis), Neil Friedman (Lucius), David New (Poet/Hortensius), Scott Parkinson (Painter/Varro), Darrell Stokes (Servilius), Greg Vinkler (Ventidius/Fool), Larry Yando (Timon).
Analysis
Guest director Michael Bogdanov, founder of the English Shakespeare Company, modernizes Timon of Athens into contemporary social and political criticism, decrying the pervasive nature of materialism and sexism in western culture. Shakespeare Repertory advertises the production as being the only Shakespeare play not produced onstage during the Bard's lifetime (probably true) as well as the first ever production to be mounted in Chicago (maybe true). Bogdanov begins the production, staged within the wealthy Gold Coast neighborhood of Chicago, in the lobby of the Ruth Page Theatre, where waiters in tuxedoes offer patrons hors d'oeuvres, champagne and cocktails. The opening night party spills pre-curtain into the theatre itself, as servants ask patrons taking their seats for their proper invitations. Onstage, a news photographer snaps pictures with a camera, and the house lights remain up as the Painter and Poet enter from the aisles. The stage then swarms with guests in suits on cell phones, apparently important businessmen and elected officials, with just a few champagne-swilling women in tight velvet evening gowns.
Larry Yando's memorable Timon - a smooth-talking fusion of back-slapping corporate CEO, baby-kissing political bureaucrat, well-connected lobbyist, and grandiose entertainer - arrives amid the sound effects of an approaching helicopter, limousine sirens and car door slams, then cries of, "His lordship!" A dark-suited bodyguard in a trench coat and dark glasses leads a grinning Timon in a white silk suit and sunglasses down the center aisle. Timon twirls among his group of almost entirely male guests in a flurry of flamboyant generosity, bestowing gifts and sparking applause, at one point tearing up a loan repayment check. The powerful supposed friends sit around a long black-and-chrome banquet table, swilling cocktails, puffing cigars, and pawing at exotic dancers, pretending to refuse Timon's gifts even as they stuff their pockets. Women are objects to this power structure, who cheer three strippers - a brunette, a blonde, and a redhead - gyrating a bump-and-grind on the tabletop, then leaping into the mens' arms before approaching Timon. Yando's Timon, playing a part but somewhat distanced, observes from far downstage, and he gallantly kisses the dancers' hands before paying them and seeing them off.
Yando dominates both acts with a bravura performance, a charming and boyishly chivalrous big-time player surrounded by parasites. Only Apemantus and Alcibiades are fleshed out among the supporting roles. Apemantus, a gray-bearded and pony-tailed scholar in a long brown leather coat and riding a simple bicycle, acts as cynical chorus, commenting frequently - "what a number of men eat at Timon" - from a glaring spot light at the obvious avarice and false friendship around him. He wryly comments, "I eat root," during a Timon champagne toast, and his comment on the "sweep of vanity" is given prominence by the sudden slowing of the dancers and their audience to sluggish slow motion behind him. And Alcibiades - a looming, black-bearded man who resembles a Cuban Marxist - is given special importance in his initial appearance, as the house lights drop and stage lights come up as he arrives at Timon's extravagant garden party. Later, he visits the capital to intervene on Timon's behalf, clearly out of place in his olive drab military uniform among business-suited senators dining hurriedly within a crowded cafeteria.
The pivotal rejections by Timon's business associates are preceded by warnings from both Apemantus and Flavius, the former disregarded by Timon, who nonchalantly puts his feet up on the chrome table and feigns attention. But when the accountant Flavius provides the cold hard facts - delivered via calculations from a laptop personal computer on a small black desk - Timon drops his head into his hands in a gesture that appears to be the first crack in his proverbial armor: "unwisely...have I given." Bogdanov stages the actual rejections with visual flair, exposing decadent self-indulgence" Lucullus rises from a hot tub and dons a terry cloth robe, attended by a woman in a pink robe whom he fondles; Lucius drinks at a bar with a pair of prostitutes who hustle passing strangers in cowboy boots and hats; and Sempronius ignores requests while bidding at a stock exchange.
Yando's Timon seems to teeter on the edge of self-control during the second banquet, nearly his usual congenial self but with some suspicion and cunning in his manner. When the guests realize they've been served stones and warm water, Timon splashes them from his own bowl, then upsets the table, sending table settings crashing to the floor. The guests flee, some scrambling for cover and others for cell phones, and the enraged Timon hurls stones after them. Timon slips over the edge of sanity - or in Yando's performance, dramatically careens over it - crashing through an upstage scrim and leaving a gaping and jagged hole, then returning to tear his jacket off, leap atop the banquet table, and scream primally to conclude the first act.
Bogdanov's second act is a triumph of design. Set within an urban wasteland - a materialistic society's littered junkyard ankle-deep in refuse - with Timon's desert "cave" refuge a burnt-out automobile. The hole remains visible in the upstage scrim, figuratively the point of passing between short-sighted generosity and misanthropic dementia - but is now surrounded by apparent gang-symbol graffiti. Other props include an oil drum trashcan, a rusted-out bicycle, and a corroded old trunk, and Timon emerges from the driver's seat of the battered car in the filthy rag remains of his white silk suit. Yando's Timon has been reduced to a madman sputtering against humanity in snarls, sneers and spits, even animalistic growls. He seems hysterical, sometimes bulging his eyes and at one point hyperventilating. Because the audience witnesses so little real transformation in Timon (apart from brief moments during the second banquet), the sudden change is jarring and unfortunately comical, but ultimately compelling due to Yando's skills.
Bogdanov reveals the inescapable nature of a perverted materialistic society with the sound of helicopters overhead as Timon digs for roots (and finds gold coins) or bites at a grapefruit rind and an overly ripe banana. Timon endures several generic encounters - with soldiers wearing camouflage fatigues and wielding automatic rifles; with prostitutes in short-skirted dresses and full-length fur coats; even with roving bandits who spew street lingo at him ("cut the crap") and try to steal from him - kept brief by Bogdanov so that they do not play as repetitive. Bogdanov instead focuses on interaction in the wasteland with Timon's former friends: Apemantus laughs at him in a cruel "I told you so" manner, driving Timon to smash his arms on the hood of the car; Flavius tenderly wipes the grime from his face and hands with a handkerchief before being sent off with a tortured command ("Fly!"); and the sycophantic Painter and Poet are chased offstage with a tire iron after Timon offers them garbage as a meal.
The conclusion - after two hours of laser-like focus on brutal rejection and raging hatred - comes appropriately as something of a relief. Timon digs in the oil drum for food scraps, then uses a hubcap to etch his epitaph on a makeshift tombstone. When the senators approach, their flashlight beams probing the darkness, they rouse Timon from the car with their fear of Alcibiades' wrath, again treating Timon as a generous friend. Timon merely pulls a filthy sheet over his head and passes away, and the senators sacrifice two of their own to Alcibiades in hopes of quelling an invasion. As his own helicopter is heard in its approach, Alcibiades sadly reads from Timon's epitaph and this production - with its fascinating modern staging and Yando's dynamic, schizophrenic lead role - comes to its end.