Dr. Gretchen Minton at Montana State University presents an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens in Bozeman and Butte on September 7th and 8th. These free outdoor performances represent Minton’s latest research project, which endeavors to use site-specific classical drama as a way of addressing the challenges of human impact on our ecosystems. The performance venues—The Silos at Story Mill in Bozeman and Mountain Con Mine Yard in Butte—were chosen because these sites are formerly industrial areas that have been reclaimed as spaces for public gatherings and artistic projects.
Timon of Athens has become popular recently due to its topics of greed, friendship, loyalty, economic disaster, and environmental degradation. Minton is setting her 75-minute adaptation of this play, called Timon of Anaconda, in 1960s-70s Butte, Montana. The play tells the story of a mining mogul who loses everything and is abandoned by his friends. He then attempts to retreat to the wilderness, only to find that there is no place that does not have the mark of human activity.
Dr. Minton is a full professor of English at Montana State University, specializing in Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Since 2011, Minton has served as Dramaturg for Shakespeare in the Parks and Bozeman Actors Theatre, as well as giving lectures at international festivals and conferences. Her Provost’s Lecture on Shakespeare in Montana is available here on KGVM.
Minton uses drama, Shakespeare in particular, as a means of exploring the Anthropocene, a time when human impact upon the earth has become the most dominant force on the environment. She notes that Shakespeare was concerned about human impact on the earth as far back as the beginning of the seventeenth century when he wrote Timon. Because the vast majority of Montanans love their public lands and show a high concern for environment protections, this play can help us consider our culpability in ecological disaster, but also imagine a way forward that can include better stewardship of our natural world.
It is Minton’s hope that this inaugural production could serve as a model for communities to use local theatre as a means of exploring issues specific to local environmental concerns, encouraging solutions based on ecological reciprocity.
Free public outdoor performances are offered in Bozeman on Saturday 7 September at 3 pm at The Silos at Story Mill, and in Butte on Sunday 8 September at 3 pm at Foreman’s Park at Mountain Con Mine Yard.
For more information, please contact Dr. Gretchen Minton at Gretchen.minton@montana.edu or 612.710.5185. Visit her webpage at www.gretchenminton.com