Timon of Athens

In a respectful, but not reverent, adaptation, Kenneth Cavander reimagines Timon of Athens for the twenty-first century.

Never performed in Shakespeare’s lifetime, Timon of Athens presents an intriguing puzzle for contemporary audiences. The disjointed plot and many gaps in the story have led scholars to believe it was a collaboration between Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton, a younger writer known for his satires, and productions for decades have faced choices about the most effective way to present the play. In this translation, Cavander acts as a third playwright in this collaborative process. Wrangling the voices of Shakespeare and Middleton on the page, Cavander unveils poetic lines and phrases that have sat stubbornly in the cobwebs, cutting these voices through the time barrier and into the world as we know it.

This translation was written as part of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Play On! project, which commissioned new translations of thirty-nine Shakespeare plays. These translations present the work of "The Bard" in language accessible to modern audiences while never losing the beauty of Shakespeare’s verse. These volumes make these works available for the first time in print—a new First Folio for a new era.

Kenneth Cavander’s plays, adaptations, and translations have been widely performed both in the United States and abroad. His work has been presented on Broadway and at many regional theaters, including the Guthrie Theater, Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., the Yale Repertory Theatre, the Williamstown Theatre Festival, and by the Royal Shakespeare Company. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild and Writers Guild of America West.