Associate Director and Set Design - Performed at the Everglades Gardens, Leura for Sport for Jove

6 – 22 JANUARY 2024

I HATE PEOPLE; or Timon of Athens

Written by Will Shakespeare and Tom Middleton

Adapted by Damien Ryan and Margaret Thanos

Directed by Margaret Thanos

Be honest now. Do your friends suck? Not always. But, come on, sometimes...? So they secretly love it when you screw up, fall down, miss out, give in? Do you do it to them... have you? What's it worth, any of it? Friendship? Loyalty? Love? If it were made of gold, what would it weigh?

Well... Timon has it all... the cash, the cache, the companions, and a heart of gold. But that'll never last, you know the story! And when it all goes up in smoke, so does everyone around him. One friend tried to warn him, but who listens to the pessimist? We all hate a misanthrope.

But we hate ingratitude more. And nothing burns like betrayal. Alond and enraged, Timon strips himself bare, runs from the world, curses the city, and revels in exile. And wouldn't you know it... digging in the dirt for a scrap of food... finds mor wealth than he had before, just lying there under the earth in a barren field. What will he do with it this time, being generous never paid off, so what's the opposite??

Shakespeare's Timon of Athens is a black comedy dressed up as a Greek tragedy, an hilariously dark, joyfully brutal and very modern immorality tale. Dicken's borrowed from it, Marx built a new world order out of it, our contemporary age sits squarley in its sights - and it gives you, the playgoer, an extraordinary opportunity... to watch a Shakespeare play where you don't know what happens next, have no idea how it ends, and will be surprised at every turn.

Production images: © Kathy Liu