The always excellent Christopher Prentice at the Newberry Library on Saturday.

On Saturday, the Shakespeare Project of Chicago (SPC) presented Timon of Athens at the Newberry Library — their first reading in that venue since February 2020.

Put up thy gold: go on, — here’s gold, — go on;
Be as a planetary plague, when Jove
Will o’er some high-viced city hang his poison
In the sick air: let not thy sword skip one….

— Timon of Athens, Act IV, Scene iii

Peter Garino in the titular role absolutely rocked, but the rest of the cast was excellent, too. What a return!

My affection for SPC’s work is long-lived. My son and I attended our first SPC production, The Merchant of Venice, twenty-one years ago. That fall, we saw The Two Gentlemen of Verona, directed by Jeff Christian, who also played Valentine; then, in 2005, we caught The Winter’s Tale. After that, the move from Chicago coupled with busy weekend schedules prevented us from attending the theatrical readings.

Nearly a decade later, though, in February 2014, I finally introduced my husband and daughters to the SPC, and in a neat “full circle” moment, the production was The Two Gentlemen of Verona, directed by Jeff Christian. For a few moments, it felt as if time were bending, folding in upon itself as I remembered encountering this play with my son while my husband took our then quite young daughters to play in a nearby park.

The four of us also saw All’s Well That Ends Well in 2014, and in 2016, we attended three SPC productions: The Winter’s Tale in January, Cymbeline in late February, and Cardenio in April. Excellent, all, but Tale featured Christopher Prentice and so provided the synchronicity / serendipity / synthesis I so appreciate. You see, Prentice was a standout at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival we attended in 2014 — an impressive Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing and a perfect Ned in Elizabeth Rex. At Much Ado, in another of those moments in which time bent, folded upon itself, and left me breathless, we read in the program that Prentice was a founding member of the now-defunct Signal Theatre Ensemble, and I remembered that in 2003 he played Benedick in Much Ado,a production my son and I saw at a studio of the Anthenaeum Theatre on the grounds of St. Alphonsus Church in Chicago. 

Time bends and folds.

After our daughters headed to university and beyond, my husband and I continued to attend SPC readings: Henry V in October 2016, King John and The Changeling in 2017; Coriolanus and Women Beware Women in 2018; Titus Andronicus in 2019; and Richard III in early 2020. Yesterday’s was the first we attended at the Newberry Library, and despite the wildly uncomfortable chairs, we think we may continue to see them there. (We saw the other readings at the Highland Park, Winnetka, and Vernon Area public libraries).

Speaking of time’s bends and folds, Christopher Prentice introduced yesterday’s program.

The material in today’s entry was culled from an earlier post
and the title comes from Timon of Athens, Act IV, Scene iii.