Criticism of a Timon of Athens production by the former National Theatre director, Richard Eyre, missed the mark, says feature writer Alex Clark
How do we determine what can be changed and what cannot? Who is the arbiter?
In practical terms, nobody. The plays are out of copyright and can be read or performed anywhere, by anybody, in whatever manner they prefer. And outside the scholarly world and the world of the theatre professional, those who can assess how greatly apparently small changes – in the case of changing man to woman, a single syllable – affect how those lines land and what they can carry, are a pretty small bunch. The thought of theatregoers emerging into the stilly night and saying to one another, “If I’d known there was going to be an extra foot in Act III I’d have stayed at home,” is an unlikely one.
