The critic Harold Bloom is said to have credited poetry slams with the death of literature, but an adaptation of “Timon of Athens” with three stars of the underground rap scene demonstrates that slam and Shakespeare have plenty in common. Fundamentally popular arts, both relish in bringing the spoken word to the people by pushing language to heights of musicality and imagery. They’re also blisteringly human and a lot of fun to watch. Those qualities are only part of the success of the “Timon d’Athenes” directed by Razerka Ben Sadia-Lavant, who has astutely seen in Shakespeare’s last play, a work made for the slam stage.
That is to say that the play has a checkered history. Unfinished, rarely produced and with an ambiguous story allowing little comfort or a clear moral, Timon lurks in the curtains as Hamlet and Lear steal the spotlight again and again. That marginal position lies easily with the show’s performers who represent the underclass of a politically and socially engaged form of rap that is far from the genteel melodies and lyrics of MC Solaar or the marketing machine of Diam’s. French rappers of West Indian origins, Casey and D’de Kabal are joined in the project by former Nuyorican Poetry Slam (NYC) laureate Mike Ladd, along with actors Denis Lavant and Marie Payen. They form an intimidating team to tell the story of Timon, a wildly generous but equally naive idealist who goes to his grave hating mankind when wealth then friends recede into the horizon. Asking the questions of friendship’s “price” and the power of moolah to create obsequious flatterers, the play’s themes are similarly in keeping with the rap scene’s penchant for bankrolls and bling.
These connections lead to a truly inventive adaptation of Shakespeare, but one that retains a sense of measure while offering a piercing reading of the text: a quality which lifts the struts and swaggers, the gold gloves and the omnipresent mikes from mere vehicle to interpretative insight. Lavant plays Lavant, a live wire if ever there was one, and his mere presence adds a dangerous unpredictability to Timon, who literally collapses under the weight of his rage. D’de Kabal lends his impressive stature and vocal register to Alcibiades, the rebellious general, and Marie Payen fills in the supporting roles from the artist and merchant classes, as well as Flavius, Timon’s faithful servant; her casting brings the sole hint of sex to Timon’s Athens, obsessed with money at the expense of human relations. As Apemantus, the cynical philosopher who scorns Timon’s hangers-on, Casey gives the most astonishing performance. This female rapper from Seine-Saint-Denis via Fort-de-France has built on an androgynous appearance to enter the macho world of hip-hop, but her softer physicality sets Apemantus off from Alcibiades and makes for a a fascinating, insult-hurling show-down with Lavant’s tiny Timon in the play’s final act.
Those verbal jousts of which Shakespeare was a master, 400 years before Grandmaster Flash, are, in Timon, particularly well served by rap’s pulsing braggadocio. Besides commissioning a translation that has its ear to the language of the streets (by Sophie Couronne), Ben Sadia-Lavant had the excellent idea to invite American spoken word master Mike Ladd to deliver Timon’s significant monologues in a sizzling half-sung, half-rapped VO: some of the most exciting moments of the show. The production does away entirely with set and movement, leaving only the text in a poetry slam atmosphere, the performers delivering their lines from five microphone stations. The sole concession to the dramatic genre is their repeated costume changes, to signal character shifts and to mark Timon’s demise from wealthy benefactor to destitute misanthrope. Even with prodigious Doctor L. on percussion, guitar and synthesizer, the show clocks in at a mere 75 minutes. Purists be damned: it’s a slam all right, but one that does Shakespeare proud.
To March 12, Tues-Sat, 8 pm, Sat, 7 pm, Maison des Métallos, 94 rue Jean-Piere Timabud, 11e, Mº Couronnes, 10-14 euros, tel: 01.48.05.88.27.
