Even
geniuses need to redraft. Shakespeare was a jobbing writing, so I imagine he
had to pick his creative battles, and Timon
of Athens was not one of them. Narrative rules of thumb exist for a reason.
Rules such as: ‘If you have a character arc, don’t give the first half to one
character and the second half to another.’ If you start a play with a character
learning to hate all humanity because a few people have wronged him, and you
end the play with a character learning to put his hate away when he realises
that those few people don’t equal all humanity, then you should ensure they are
the same character. And if you are going to have a character realise that not
all people are despicable, you should obey the parroting of creative writing
manuals, and show us these
non-despicable people, rather than just telling
us they exist.
There
is a rich Athenian called Timon, who gives much charity, gifts, and feasts. He
is popular. It has slipped Timon’s mind that he’s paying for these charities,
gifts, and feasts with debt. Because Athens has no credit rating authority,
Timon’s creditor’s come calling long after he’s lost all ability to repay them.
Believing his past beneficiaries will become his present benefactors, Timon
asks his friends to bail him out. They refuse, given it is a very large debt,
which is primarily his fault. After throwing rocks at his ‘mouth-friends’, he
moves to a forest, where he moans about how terrible people are to every
passer-by. Meanwhile, an Athenian general called Alcibiades tries to appeal the
death sentence of a friend who killed a man in a pub fight. Alcibiades is
refused, banished, and so decides to bring an army to destroy Athens.
Meanwhile, Timon dies off-stage. In the end, two senators surrender to
Alcibiades, and convince him not to kill everyone.
