Tom Williams

Timon of Athens is cautionary morality tale about the seductive power of wealth set in the high-risk modern world of futures trading. Timon is an extremely wealthy man who is generous to all as he values friendship by sharing his wealth with all who enter his sphere. We witness Timon’s generosity at a banquet feast that finds the titan celebrating life by sharing his money with artist, poets, a servant, and a senator, among others. Timon is a fine fellow who apparently is beloved by all.

Originally produced at New York’s Roundabout Theatre, playwright Kim Rosenstock’s dark comedy, Tigers Be Still, is a fun-filled comedy featuring a group of likable losers who can’t seem to cope with life’s stresses.

The routine of daily office life turns strange when Mr. Dart (Peter Moore), from the Central Office, arrive to question Mr. Raymond’s (Peter Esposito) “business practices.”

We learn that Bobby is a crude, ignorant wife-beating slob who dislikes his sister. We see Betty as a college dean and aging married with children beauty who has a past enlivened with much promiscuity. Betty’s sexual encounters still haunt her. As the two siblings rant at one another gradually Bobby gets to the truth of why he is helping his sister clear out a cabin late night during a thunder storm. The cabin is full of lies as nothing is as it seems and the truth refuses to be discarded with all the books.

Formatted as a play-within-a play, the cast members are both participants as Numberless and sympathizers with them. The plot is cliched, trite and predictable – a contemporary “Mad Max” style rock fantasy. The players are manic, hyper sensitive and over-the-top; the singing consists of screaming and mind-numbing garbled harmonies. I’m can’t find anything artistic or stage worthy to justify spending $20 -$25 and 90 minutes of your time attending Rise of the Numberless

The two are alienated by a bitter divorce that finds Denny only spending weekends with his dad, Ky. On their sixty mile journey from Denny’s soccer game to Ky’s home, the two awkwardly try to communicate but bitterness and teenage angst get in the way. Denny resents his father who tries, fumbles actually, to relate to his son. Ky is totally out of touch with Denny and the more he tries, the more resistant and awkward Denny feels. There are many funny and poignant moments filled with natural dialogue that gets us to hope that Ky will somehow relate to young Denny.

Director Brandon Bruce (also with Christine Scarfuto adapted the play) found some theatrically interesting staging techniques to spice up the dark story of misuse of power, revenge, the status of women, cruelty, and incest. Utilizing a five man chorus, dressed on ancient white togas, the chorus underscored the show’s action, delivered songs, made suggestive movements and acted-out several characters including mad-men.

The short scenes mixed with those inexplicable fraudulent pop celebrates left me confused. I was able to ‘get’ the gay couple that had one a playwright – Bixby (John Zinn) struggling to get produced. After many rejections, he decided to send in his plays not from himself but from a fictional African-American Lesbian woman (Sam Bailey) in a wheelchair.