Ecological Adaptation in Montana: Timon of Athens to Timon of Anaconda
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Gretchen E. Minton
Ecological Adaptation in Montana:
Timon of Athens to Timon of Anaconda
In this article Gretchen E. Minton describes her adaptation of William Shakespeare and
Thomas Middleton’s 1606 play Timon of Athens. This adaptation, called Timon of Anaconda,
focuses on the environmental legacy of Butte, Montana, a mining city that grew quickly,
flourished, fell into recession, and then found itself labelled the largest Superfund clean-up site
in the United States. Timon of Anaconda envisions Timon as a wealthy mining mogul whose
loss of fortunes and friends echoes the boom-and-bust economy of Butte. The original play’s
language about the poisoning of nature and the troubled relationship between the human and
more-than-human worlds is amplified and adjusted in Timon of Anaconda in order to reflect
upon ongoing environmental concerns in Montana. Minton explains the ecodramaturgical
aims, site-specific locations, and directorial decisions of this adaptation’s performances,
which took place in September 2019. Gretchen E. Minton is Professor of English at Montana
State University, Bozeman. She has edited several early modern plays, including Timon of
Athens, Troilus and Cressida, Twelfth Night, and The Revenger’s Tragedy. She is the
dramaturg for Montana Shakespeare in the Parks and Bozeman Actors Theatre, and her
directorial projects include A Doll’s House (2019), Timon of Anaconda (2019–20), and
Shakespeare’s Walking Story (2020).
Key terms: William Shakespeare, Thomas Middleton, Butte, Anthropocene, ecodramaturgy,
mining, mineral extraction.
BUTTE, MONTANA. September, 2019. Under What is amiss, plague and infection mend.
a picnic pavilion at Foreman’s Park, an Graves only be men’s works and death their gain,
Sun, hide thy beams, Timon hath done his reign.1
audience sits to witness a play performance
adapted from Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens,
now called Timon of Anaconda. A 200-foot min- He walks through the audience, not looking
ing headframe serves as the drama’s (un)natu- at anyone, and slowly makes his way toward
ral backdrop, and behind the audience a his certain death at the Berkeley Pit – the cen-
massive hole in the earth created by open-pit tre of the largest Superfund site in the US.2
mining testifies to a land permanently scarred As a dramaturg and Shakespearean
by the industrial practices of mineral extrac- scholar/editor, I work on Montana-based
tion. The titular character, wearing a torn and productions of classical plays that deal with
dirty tank top and without shoes, clutches a local and current environmental issues.3 My
piece of bark with some writing upon it. aims are ecodramaturgical, following Wendy
He looks disdainfully at the other characters Arons and Teresa May’s call to engage in
onstage, who are begging him to return to civi- ‘theatre and performance making that puts
lization and help save his city. Timon answers: ecological reciprocity and community at the
centre of its theatrical and thematic intent’.4
Come not to me again, but say to Butte, In 2018 and 2019 I returned to a play I edited
Timon hath made his everlasting mansion over a decade earlier – Timon of Athens –
Upon the gougèd verge of toxic flood, endeavouring to explore its ecological insights
Who once a day with his embossèd froth
The turbulent surge shall cover; thither come, through adapting, workshopping, and
And let my gravestone be your oracle. mounting a production of the play in Mon-
Lips, let sour words go by, and language end: tana.5 The two performances of Timon of
20 ntq 37:1 (february 2021) doi:10.1017/S0266464X20000779
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the
terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits
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Anaconda in September of 2019 were preceded Meanwhile, Timon’s loyal Steward tries to
by extensive outreach efforts, including radio persuade him to see reason, for this suppos-
advertising, interviews, and podcasts. This edly rich man has been living beyond his
play and adaptation were also the starting means, entirely on credit. When the creditors
point of a graduate seminar I was teaching, demand repayment, Timon is sure that he will
called ‘Shakespeare and the Natural World’. be able to call upon his friends to assist him,
The performance programme included scene but, of course, they refuse to help. Meanwhile,
summaries and explanations of the characters, Timon’s other friend, Alcibiades, a military
along with an articulation of the adaptation’s commander, finds the senators of Athens sim-
purpose: ilarly ungrateful when he pleads for clemency
on behalf of a soldier who has broken the law.
Shakespeare’s texts offer a rich storehouse of The senate banishes Alcibiades, despite every-
language, metaphors, and situations that can be thing he has done to protect the city. Timon is
adapted to speak to contemporary environmental devastated by his friends’ betrayal, so he
challenges. This adaptation of Timon foregrounds
the links between economic and ecological systems retreats to the wilderness, vowing to live as a
in Montana: a state that was first settled by white beast among the beasts. Digging in the earth to
people because of gold mining, built into an eco- find food, he ironically turns up a mass of
nomic powerhouse because of copper mining, and buried treasure. From that point on many
continues to be one of the top coal-producers in the visit him – some are just passing through
US. Timon of Anaconda emphasizes the shared guilt
of our impact upon the earth, but also gestures (Alcibiades); others preach to him about the
toward possible futures that are dependent upon errors of his thinking (Apemantus); some
forgiving faults, even egregious ones that created attempt to help him (the Steward); but most
environmental catastrophe. Theatre is the perfect want to get their hands on his money. Timon
way to wrestle with difficult problems and to open declares himself a misanthrope and refuses to
up paths for further conversation.
see the differences between people. He even-
tually digs his own grave, carves a scurrilous
Timon’s thematics and language portray a
epitaph, and dies. Alcibiades marches on Ath-
network of complex economic systems as they
ens, but at the last minute relents and decides
are intertwined with broader ecological systems,
not to sack the city.
making it an ideal vehicle for this kind of explo-
In recent decades, actors playing the title
ration. The September 2019 Timon of Anaconda
role in Timon of Athens have spent much of
production reclaimed and revitalized the early
the second half of the play standing knee-
modern text, the performance sites, and the com-
or waist-deep in a pit. Take, for example,
munity ethos of environmental stewardship.
Michael Pennington at the Royal Shakespeare
Company (1999); Peter Donaldson, Stratford
Ontario (2004); Joseph Ziegler, Stratford
Mining Timon of Athens
Ontario (2017); and Glenda Jackson, Royal
Shakespeare wrote Timon of Athens in 1606 in Shakespeare Company (2018). Crucially, this
collaboration with his younger contemporary hole is something that Timon himself has cre-
Thomas Middleton. It is one of the lesser- ated. Timon the misanthrope says he will bear
known plays in the Shakespearean canon, per- nothing from the ‘detestable town’ of Athens
haps due to its unusual structure and its bent (4.1.33), yet somehow he has a spade so that he
toward allegory. The story centres upon a can dig.6 What does it mean to turn over the
wealthy, beneficent man named Timon who earth – to seek below the surface for food, or
throws lavish parties and showers his friends for mineral wealth?
with gifts. They all fawn over him, giving him Ovid’s description of the Ages of Man in his
small presents because they know he will give Metamorphoses suggests part of the answer.
much more expensive ones in return. A cynic Ovid locates the beginning of human discord
named Apemantus watches all of this, refuses in the Iron Age, signalled by the rupture of
to participate, and predicts Timon’s fall from the earth by both ploughs (agriculture) and
Fortune’s hill, but no one listens. spades (mining).7 Classical and Christian
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21
philosophy equated Pluto, the god of the the resources of the earth are transmuted into
underworld, with Plutus, the god of riches, wealth for those who extract, refine, and sell
identifying money (and the processes of them. Such ‘alchemical’ creation on an indus-
acquiring it) as the root of evil. Timon lends trial scale has resulted in poisonous
itself to an Ovidian – and ecological – perspec- by-products that cannot be returned to their
tive whereby the activity of digging up the elemental forms.
earth’s mineral wealth unleashes evils that The language of alchemy in the original
underpin the discord of human societies. As play thus offers a precedent for Timon of Ana-
John Jowett argued in his 2004 article ‘Timon conda’s reflections upon the modern equiva-
and Mining’, the play can be read as partici- lencies of such philosophies. Although Butte
pating in an Ovidian-inspired literary tradi- is the focus of Timon of Anaconda, my adapta-
tion that describes ‘humankind’s denatured tion does not merely replay the horrors of this
and violent relationship with the natural history but seeks to articulate the network of
world, and with itself’.8 Shakespeare and human and non-human systems that have
Middleton extended this tradition into their both created this history and had an impact
own historical moment, alluding to the on it. Mining in Butte, as elsewhere, was
nascent technologies of copper and coal min- accompanied by a false faith in human clever-
ing in early modern Europe. ness and technological wizardry to rush,
The origin of Timon’s mysterious buried break open, and exploit the ‘secret’ and slow
treasure has long puzzled critics and directors processes of nature to serve anthropocentric
alike; often stage productions portray it as a ambitions and greed.
chest of minted coins that are a product of
human society. In Trevor Nunn’s 1991 pro-
Butte/Anaconda: The Environmental Legacy
duction at the Young Vic, for example, a scene
was added in which gunmen bury loot after a The city of Butte, in south-west Montana, was
robbery, and this is what Timon later digs dubbed ‘the richest hill on earth’ in the late
up. A similar staging provided a backstory nineteenth century because of its immense
for the treasure in Michael Kahn’s production deposits of ore, especially copper, but also
at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington DC zinc, manganese, and silver. After years of
(2000). But as Jowett notes, Timon sees min- digging tunnels to excavate the ore, the pow-
eral gold as a by-product of the earth, like the erful Anaconda Copper Mining Company
roots, and the poetics of Acts 4 and 5 suggest turned to open-pit mining in the mid-1950s.
that the treasure is not money, but raw ore. When the resources dried up and Anaconda
The strongest ecological reading of Timon moved its operations to South America, the
must also take full measure of the play’s recur- mine was run by ARCO, until it was shut
rent allusions to alchemy. References to base down in 1982 (appropriately, or ironically,
metal (3.1.46, 3.3.6), coining (2.1.6), the philos- on Earth Day). The Berkeley Pit measures
opher’s stone (2.2.110), and alchemical trans- 7,000 feet in length by 5,600 feet in width
formation (5.1.112) all point toward the (Figure 1).
significance of this motif in Timon.9 In this play When the mining operation was discontin-
alchemy becomes not the magic of philoso- ued, the pumps stopped running, and subse-
phers, but the bitter, mundane practice of quently the pit filled with groundwater and
usury. In a philosophy that extends from Aris- rain that created a highly toxic lake, laden
totle to Marx and beyond, usury is the process with arsenic, zinc, and sulfuric acid, at a depth
whereby that which is inherently sterile of 1,780 feet. The pit, along with a stretch of the
(money) is made to reproduce, and such Deer Lodge Valley in which Butte is located, is
unnatural fecundity generates monstrous off- the largest EPA Superfund Site in the US. The
spring. The dream of turning base metals into sobering fact is that no one knows how to
gold has been realized many times over in the clean up the damage, and soon the pit’s water
modern era – not just the literal minting of is predicted to contaminate the Silver Bow
gold, of course, but the myriad ways in which Creek and thus the entire water table.10
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Figure 1. The Berkeley Pit in Butte, Montana. Photo: Heather Minton.
Meanwhile, the impact of the toxins on wild- narratives are over-simplified and ultimately
life is startlingly apparent; several times flocks unhelpful when considering the effectiveness
of snow geese have landed on this artificial of ecodramaturgy for making a difference in
lake and died, their white feathers stained by our world. Timothy LeCain makes a similar
the red-orange acidic liquid that they mistook point in his Mass Destruction: The Men and
for life-sustaining water.11 Giant Mines that Wired America and Scarred
The boom-and-bust economy of Butte, as the Planet, which offers an instructive look at
well as its record of environmental catastro- Butte’s history from an enviro-technological
phe, have made it the subject of many point of view. He argues that ‘we should resist
documentaries, environmental studies, and a too facile framing of Butte’s environmental
books.12 But while it is all too easy to point history as merely a morality play on the evils
fingers at Butte, and to use this place as an of early twentieth-century corporate capital-
object lesson about errors of the past, such ism’ because ‘such a simple declensionist tale
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23
tends to obscure other important aspects of handed irony underscores William Cronon’s
the story that offer more useful lessons for point about ‘wilderness’ being a human
understanding the human relationship to the invention. He contends that this faulty term
environment’.13 The story that needs to be refuses to acknowledge a crucial fact: there is
told, according to LeCain, ‘is one of arrogant no such thing as an earth devoid of human
overconfidence more than deliberate malice, influence.16 This is especially true in the
of difficult trade-offs more than moral abso- Anthropocene, but as we have become
lutes, about shared guilt rather than conve- increasingly aware, the human footprint on
nient scapegoats’.14 As a literary work that ecosystems goes back millennia, even to evi-
frustrates simple dichotomies as well as sim- dence of ancient copper smelting preserved in
ple answers, Timon of Athens offers abundant the Arctic ice.17 Timon’s behaviour in the sec-
opportunities for exploring the alternate nar- ond half of the play can be characterized as
ratives LeCain calls for. Even the play’s resis- anti-human exceptionalism, but this extreme
tance to traditional tragic expectations and the is fraught with as many problems as the end-
unevenness of its structure seem to demand less bounty he professes in the first half of the
new languages of analysis. play. As Apemantus aptly says regarding
In his first chapter LeCain evokes an article Timon’s failure to appreciate the golden
by the environmental historian William mean: ‘The middle of humanity thou never
Cronon titled ‘The Trouble with Wilderness; knewst, but the extremity of both ends’
or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature’. LeCain (4.3.300–1).
refers to this work because one goal of his own It is more than a little daunting to stand at
book ‘is to examine ways in which we might the edge of the Berkeley Pit and contemplate
instead find our way back to something more its expanse, and, similarly, to visit the state
like the “right nature”, to a concept of nature park at the Washoe smelter in the neighbour-
that more clearly includes humans and their ing town of Anaconda. The smelter is 585 feet
technologies in its definition’.15 Interestingly, tall and was built in 1918 in an early attempt to
the phrase ‘right nature’ also occurs in Timon. pump mining by-products such as arsenic
Complaining that he has turned up gold higher into the atmosphere so that they did
rather than roots, Timon talks back to his not kill the cattle. In the 1950s, there were
environment: advertisements pronouncing that Berkeley
Pit epitomizes ‘America the Bountiful’,
Come, damned earth, encouraging visitors to marvel at what tech-
Thou common whore of mankind that puts odds nology is making possible for the modern
Among the rout of nations, I will make thee
Do thy right nature. way of life.18 Now, however, the viewing
(4.3.42–5, my emphasis) points at Berkeley Pit and Washoe State Park
provide visitors with interpretive information
What is the ‘right nature’ of the earth? In about history, technology, and environmental
Timon’s view late in the play, the land should impact. Brian James Leech calls this ‘toxic
provide food (even if that makes Mother Earth tourism’, which involves going to poisoned
a whore), for the presence of mineral wealth places in order to better understand (and per-
is somehow ‘unnatural’. Such a distinction, haps later prevent) such events.19 As inheri-
however, is inherently faulty, since ore, too, tors of this pit, we can see, with LeCain, that
is a ‘natural’ part of the earth, even though it is ‘the pits of mass destruction are the embodi-
not alive in the biological sense. ment of a human cultural, economic, and tech-
Timon’s error, both before and after his fall, nological relationship with nature gone badly
is a failure to accept the inevitable intercon- awry’.20
nectedness of human, economic, and ecologi- Many moments in Butte’s history could
cal systems. In Timon’s attempt to escape to testify to this story of a relationship gone
the wilderness and live like a beast among the badly awry, and I was originally attracted to
beasts, he finds not food but gold, not animals the early twentieth century for my adaptation
but a stream of human visitors. Such heavy- because of the boom of the Anaconda
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Company, the rhetoric about ‘the richest hill mining, but also on the dark logic whereby
on earth’, and the labour riots brought on the pits we create by extraction become
by dangerous working conditions. This is another way of digging our own graves.
undoubtedly the period in Butte’s history that Timon of Anaconda’s moment of extracting
receives the most attention. However, consid- treasure indicates the supposed wealth within
ering the full, visible impact of mining, it was the rock: the green copper veins that are not in
more effective to move the time period later, fact ‘Yellow, glittering, precious gold’ (4.3.26)
because it facilitates a meditation upon the but nonetheless represent the highest ambi-
ways in which Butte’s scarred landscape tion of those who made their livings, and
remains ‘an enduring physical manifestation sometimes their fortunes, from an economy
of the tremendous powers and the tragic lim- that valued this metal above all else from the
itations of the modern ideologies, societies, moment that electricity required efficient con-
and economies that created them’.21 ductors.
Timon of Anaconda is thus set in the period Timon of Athens consistently associates its
roughly from the late 1960s to the early titular character with ‘bounty’ that is magical
1980s.22 The scale of open-pit mining changed in its scope and magnitude; in a sense, Timon
everything in Butte, most significantly the replaces Mother Earth by continually provid-
pace of environmental impact and the rate at ing plenitude which others are only too happy
which the neighbourhoods were destroyed to to exploit.23 Those around him ravenously
accommodate an ever-increasing area for consume his bounty, treating him as they treat
mining. At the same time, this era gave rise their earth – with unbridled greed and con-
to the environmental movement, which did in sumption of resources. One of Timon’s friends
fact inspire Butte citizens to fight against the later admits that he has ‘often of [Timon’s]
continued destruction wrought by the mining open bounty tasted’ (5.1.56), and multiple ref-
companies. In order to capture the historical erences to cannibalism illustrate the mon-
significance of these developments, Timon of strous implications of such consumption.
Anaconda’s scenes touch upon Berkeley Pit’s The cannibalism metaphor resonates with
excavation and shutting down, the demise the history of Butte, for the Anaconda
of the Anaconda Company, the collapse of Company’s mining operation is frequently
Butte’s economy, labour riots, a string of arson described as having ‘gobbled up’ an entire
fires that left Butte reeling, and the shutting off town, first by digging thousands of miles of
of Berkeley Pit’s pumps. tunnel beneath its surface, then by mobilizing
massive machines that turned ‘the richest hill
on earth’ into a pit. Butte communities such as
Adapting Timon’s Ecological Dimensions
the Italian neighbourhood of Meaderville
For several decades it has been commonly were swallowed by the perpetual expansion
observed that Timon of Athens, despite its alle- of the Berkeley Pit.24 This adaptation of Timon
gorical structure, is a strikingly contemporary is able to trace how the bounty of the earth,
play. Credit economy and economic collapse when exploited for capitalist gain, creates
are generally what people have in mind when endless hunger that ultimately results in
they say this, but looking at the play’s envi- the consumption of entire towns, landscapes,
ronmental ethos demonstrates how clearly ecosystems.
Timon speaks to our Anthropocene selves. Consumption, however, cannot simply be
Early modern writers often anthropomor- labelled as unnatural: after all, consuming
phized the earth in order to articulate the pain nature’s air, food, and water is fundamental
that it (she) feels when her resources are to survival for all species. Such a basic lesson
extracted, giving voice to the damage that somehow eludes Timon of Athens when he
humans inflict through mining. Because the declares himself a misanthrope and retreats to
language Timon of Athens echoes these con- the woods. By stripping himself of his clothing
cerns, the Anaconda adaptation focuses not and vowing to live like the beasts, he seeks a
only on the wider environmental impact of purer existence. Yet his meditations in Acts
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254 and 5 show his dawning awareness that each setting clearer. References to Athens and
beast is subject to another beast, that the cycles Athenians were changed to Anaconda (when
of predation, fear, and consumption permeate referring to the mining corporation) or to
all of nature (4.3.326–44). This is an important Butte/Montana (when referring to the city or
lesson for Timon: he cannot escape from larger region). In addition to substantially
the natural ecological cycles that do in fact trimming characters and scenes, the script
depend upon use. re-ordered the scenes in which visitors
By the same token, Timon comes to realize approach Timon in Acts 4 and 5, and changed
that life itself requires borrowing (or stealing) some lines in the text, especially towards the
from the earth’s bounty, and thus he tells the end of the play (discussed below).
thieves that it is possible to live off of the birds, The production’s fundamental aim was
beasts, and fishes (4.3.419). The thieves, how- to immerse the story in particular outdoor
ever, symbolize the stark reality of ‘men that spaces that were not so much ‘natural’ as
much do want’ (4.3.410): we cannot satisfy post-industrial, thereby contextualizing the
ourselves merely on basic animal provisions, adaptation’s references to human impact
for modern society’s ‘needs’ have become upon both the human and the non-human
dependent upon so much more. In the current worlds. The site for the Butte performance
century the human appetite for electronics was Foreman’s Park at the Mountain Con
and other conveniences ensures that mining Mine Yard. The landmark mining headframe
for copper, molybdenum, and other metals that marks this location bears the slogan ‘Mile
will not slow down.25 Timon of Anaconda’s High, Mile Deep’ – the remnant of a mine yard
ending echoes the foregone conclusion of con- that operated for nearly sixty years and then
tinued extraction when the senators assure sat abandoned for thirty years before being
Alcibiades that all the workers will continue opened as a remediated public park in
to ‘make their labour in our town’ until every- 2012.28 From this site one can see the Berkeley
one has his ‘full desire’.26 Pit, dozens of headframes, historic uptown
This Anaconda adaptation provides a Butte, and the rich (in every sense of the word)
model for using the play’s language to explore lands on which these human structures have
the material and ideological roots of our crises. been built (Figure 2).
The idea of ‘roots’ is essential here, not just Like Timon of Anaconda as an artistic work,
because it is an acknowledgement of the tra- this Butte park is a site of mining reclamation.
ditional idea that money is the root of all evil, It provides a place for public gatherings
but because roots are the organic counterpart amongst walking and biking trails through
to metals. Timon of Anaconda had been a newly planted native grasses but, at the same
copper king, but the digging he does later in time, it acknowledges the mining history of
the play is a desperate attempt to recover the the area, with its interpretive signs explaining
life-giving roots that could provide another the complex legacy of its topography. The
type of sustenance. What is underground is Timon of Anaconda performance was near the
brought above the surface by humans for our crumbled foundation of an actual mining fore-
use, and this alchemy is our legacy. man’s home and in the shadow of the iconic
headframe. When the play referred to the
opulence of Butte, the actors were able to
The Production: Setting and Sites
gesture towards the early-twentieth-century
In order to make this adaptation of Timon homes of its heyday, many of which still
viable for short performances and workshops, stand in a historic district visible from Fore-
the Shakespeare/Middleton text was cut to man’s Park. More striking was the expansive
about 75 minutes’ running time in a version presence, impossible to ignore, of the Berkeley
that can be performed by seven actors.27 The Pit. In many ways this pit seems like a grave-
language is still mostly the original, although yard – a chasm of death, a reminder of the
the place names and some character names forgotten past. Yet before the Butte perfor-
were altered in order to make the Montana mance of Timon of Anaconda, several actors
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https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X20000779Figure 2. Headframes at the Mountain Con Mine Yard in Butte, Montana. Photo: Kevin Brustuen.
and audience members walked on the trails constructed in 1882, the largest elevator in
above Foreman’s Park, where excavators still Montana at that time and a powerful eco-
run in the Continental Pit, extracting silver, nomic force in the region. The land on which
copper, zinc, and molybdenum. This experi- these buildings sit is rich in history, since it is a
ence was an awakening for those who wildlife corridor, while archaeological evi-
assumed that the mining impact, though dence attests to over 5,000 years of human
extensive, does not continue. One audience habitation. The Story Mill ceased operating
member recognized how she was implicated in the late 1960s, but it remains an iconic struc-
in this proximity: ture in north-east Bozeman. The city has
recently opened the large Story Mill Park next
The echoes of the hatred towards all mankind, high to these silos, dedicated to the revitalization of
and low, still ring in my head thinking about the the industrial site for use by the community,
Butte performance of Timon of Anaconda. . . . The along with a restoration of wetlands to
setting of this adaption shed light on Butte’s super-
fund site catastrophe, quite literally with no room enhance the animal population. The grain
to distance yourself, as an audience member, from terminal itself was purchased by an individ-
the horrifying reality of environmental crisis.29 ual who opened it for arts events that benefit
the community at large, including this pro-
The Bozeman performance took place at duction of Timon of Anaconda.30
the dilapidated Story Mill silos and was there- Mountain Con Mine Yard and Story Mill
fore further removed from the adaptation’s evoke material reminders of the many factors
language in terms of direct Butte references. involved in telling an environmental history,
Nevertheless, the post-industrial site allowed echoing the adaptation’s concern with the
for evocative connections to related histories human and non-human costs of industrializa-
(Figure 3). The Story Mill grain terminal was tion, but also the possibilities of restoration
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27Figure 3. The Story Mill silos in Bozeman, Montana. Photo: Kevin Brustuen.
and continued stewardship. An audience the audience began by facing the remains of a
member at Story Mill reflected on what it wooden framework over an old set of railroad
meant to be embedded in this history: tracks, but then turned to face the massive
silos. The silos had open doors, and inside were
piled various pieces of scrap wood and metal.
Driving to the site on Saturday, I was intrigued by
the juxtaposition of trees, willows, birds, sky, and It was into one of these that Timon retreated to
a gentle air with the towering concrete and metal his ‘cave’. At Mountain Con, the 90-degree turn
structures looming over the site. Humans built the allowed the audience to focus more explicitly
silos and in the process destroyed the wetlands. on the gigantic mining headframe. What was
Sitting on my chair during the performance, I heard once a proud statement about the expansive
the play’s dialogue through the occasional sounds
of car and air traffic while my left foot occasionally wealth of these mineral deposits at the Conti-
nudged an empty, plastic Coke bottle. I want to nental Divide – ‘Mile High/Mile Deep’ – took
think that I am immune to such environmental on a new significance amid the play’s lan-
issues as the Berkeley Pit, or plastic floating in the guage. When Timon spoke of ‘smoke and luke-
Pacific Ocean, or any myriad of ecological issues in warm water’, ‘reeking villainy’, and ‘infinite
play as I sat at the Silos. . . . How silly of me. I am a
we. I am part of a community, I share space and malady’ (3.7.88–97), the physical location
environment with others, and I have a responsibil- seemed to speak as well – this time of water
ity to the Earth now.31 tables, aquifers, and a perpetual clean-up site
submerged beneath this piece of ground.
In both locations we employed a white canvas As Mark Kuntz performed Timon, his
backdrop behind which actors exited and booming voice, especially in his speeches of
changed costumes. When Timon retreated to misanthropic rage, reverberated off the silos
the wilderness, however, the orientation of the in Bozeman and the hills in Butte. This lent
play’s action shifted 90 degrees. At Story Mill power and a resounding sense of awe to his
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https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X20000779tragedy. The sound also enhanced audience civilization, as he does in the Shakespeare/
reflection upon the landscapes: the hill that Middleton original, seeing them as part of the
was turned into a pit to extract minerals in corrupt urban society that he desires to escape.
Butte; and, in Bozeman, the enormous height An audience member remarked that ‘Kuntz
of a grain storage that was necessary for the bore sadness and disgust that evolved into
settlement of a valley that has become one of cynicism as his undershirt became increasingly
the fastest growing areas in the USA. Reflect- dirty and torn, a physical reminder of his new
ing upon the impact of the sound at Story Mill, place in society: alongside the earth’.33 Yet
one observer wrote: when he was in the ‘wilderness’, Timon still
used the tools of civilization: his spade and
The most striking effect of the silo, though, was the pickaxe aided his desperate digging for roots,
ethereal echo that it gave to Timon’s voice, both until he pulled out a large, almost grotesque-
strengthening it through the amplification of the looking piece of ginger. The ‘gold’ that he
acoustics, and emphasizing the smallness of Timon
in the greater world hearing his actual voice at the unearthed came in the form of green-tinted
core of that great echo. It also made me feel a certain rocks, suggesting the copper veins of
hollowness, whether it represented the womb of mineral-rich earth (Figure 4). These rocks of
Mother Earth, a hollow space in Timon’s soul, a various sizes became important props, sym-
cave, a mine, all, some or none of those.32 bolizing the greed that develops around an
economic system based on extractive industry,
most notably when the thieves scrambled on
The Production: Characters
the ground for small rocks, desperate for their
In this adaptation of the Shakespeare/Mid- share of ‘the richest hill on earth’.
dleton play, Timon is re-imagined as a mining Timon’s false friends Lucullus, Lucius, and
mogul from the Anaconda Copper Company. Ventidius (in the original) became characters
At the outset, Timon has a naïve belief that all named Daly, Clark, and Heinze in this adap-
segments of Butte’s society are fundamentally tation because their names recall the most
connected in positive ways, but his attempts famous ‘copper kings’ of Butte’s early his-
to sever human connection in the second half tory.34 Despite their names, however, two of
of the play demonstrate that one cannot these friends were played as female charac-
escape from economic, social, or environmen- ters, exuding flattery and sexual charm as they
tal webs. In his self-declared misanthropy, he received gifts such as a fur and a pearl neck-
voices a position of anti-human exceptional- lace from Timon. In terms of the society of
ism that sees people as a cancer of the planet Butte, the ‘senators’ of the play are the mining
that must be removed so that nature can moguls of the Anaconda Company and are
thrive. However, as he digs for food and turns thus nearly indistinguishable from Daly,
up gold, he also creates another pit, which Clark, and Heinze.35 The same three actors
demonstrates the inevitable impact that played the false friends, the senators, the ser-
humans have on their environment and vants to Timon’s creditors (called ‘goons’ in
re-states the question about the ‘right nature’ the adaptation), the thieves who come to steal
of that relationship. His ironic invitation to Timon’s wealth in the wilderness, and two
the senators to hang themselves from a loyal servants to Timon.
nearby tree that his ‘own use invites [him] Costumes were simple and flexible to allow
to cut down’ (5.2.91) highlights the deadly for quick changes between characters: a base
end of exploitation. Even Timon’s last act of layer of black for the goons was accessorized
carving an epitaph requires the destruction of by blue baseball caps (the servants); dresses
a tree. and sports coats (the false friends); and trench
At the outset of the performance Timon was coats and jewels (the senators). This use of
dressed in a blue corduroy jacket, a bolo tie, doubling heightened the allegorical nature of
and cowboy boots, reflecting the 1960s and the play, for the repetitive and artificial pre-
1970s setting in the American West. Timon sentation of scenes with these characters made
stripped these clothes off when he left it clear that the point of these exchanges was
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29not to convey verisimilitude but to provide a highlighted the idea that Alcibiades’ primary
satirical commentary on this shallow soci- concern was not with war, but with working
ety.36 Against these flattened, allegorical fig- in the earth.
ures, the performance focused ultimately on At the same time, the class distinction
four characters (Timon, Alcibiades, Apeman- between the flattering friends and this charac-
tus, Steward) in order to tell the central story ter was underlined by the disdainful way that
of Timon of Anaconda, because they represent they greeted the Foreman at their gatherings.
different approaches to human/non-human Apemantus’ opening speech about how
relations in the light of the grievous impact ‘all kinds of natures . . . labour on the bosom
of the Anthropocene. of this sphere / To propagate their states’
Alcibiades is a notoriously difficult charac- (1.1.66–7) emphasized the central importance
ter to portray in Timon of Athens because the of labour to Butte’s economy across all classes.
subplot regarding his rebellion seems unde- Although Alcibiades showed signs of appre-
veloped, and his motivations and sincerity ciation at being part of Timon’s circle, his
with respect to Timon’s plight are ultimately loyalties clearly lay with Butte’s rank-and-file
unclear. Such conflicting loyalties became, in miners. His friend who gets into trouble with
Timon of Anaconda, the basis for the develop- the law was a union organizer, and when the
ment of Alcibiades as a mining foreman. He senate refused to pardon this man for his
carried a hard hat and was dressed in miner’s crimes, Alcibiades used the opportunity to
clothes, which made the difference between organize his own violent workers’ strike,
him and the rest of Timon’s circle patently threatening the physical and economic safety
obvious. References to Alcibiades as a Captain of Butte.
in the original play were changed to ‘Fore- Timon of Anaconda showed Alcibiades as a
man’ in the adaptation. This simple shift man driven by a well-meaning crusade on
Figure 4. Mark Kuntz as Timon, finding a rock laden with ore. Photo: Kevin Brustuen.
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30
https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X20000779behalf of the workers. However, this anthro- period of the adaptation and the gender swap
pocentric crusade failed to recognize the of the Steward in this production, resem-
impact of war and the workforce on the envi- blances to the conservationist Rachel Carson
ronment.37 Alcibiades, in this adaptation, was informed the character portrayal. This charac-
too short-sighted to see that the environment ter was in every sense of the word a steward,
created by unbridled capitalism and exploita- taking care of both human and non-human
tion of natural resources would shortly cause environments. She not only portrayed genu-
the collapse of Butte’s economic and ecologi- ine concern for her master throughout, but
cal systems. also had the greatest ecological sensibility,
The cynic Apemantus in Timon of Athens is allowing her to become the central focus of
an outspoken critic of flattery and hypocrisy, morality and hope in this production.
and this main character trait is carried over Dressed in denim and a vest, the Steward
into Timon of Anaconda. In this version, he was, subtly matched the colour palette of Timon
in fact, given the first lines of the play (adapted (both wore light blue), yet she inhabited a
from the lines of the Poet in the original), in completely different world from the materi-
which he addressed the audience, holding up ally obsessed visitors to Timon’s house. In
the Arden edition of Timon of Athens and say- order to emphasize her understanding of true
ing that he has written this work about a man sustainability, she did not offer Timon or her
who sits high on Fortune’s hill and then is cast fellow servants money (as is indicated in the
down. He thus served as a storyteller, espe- original), but offered fresh produce, which she
cially early in the play – an aspect of his char- pulled from a CSA (Community Supported
acter reinforced during the performance by Agriculture) bag. The servants Frankie and
the use of tableaux in the first two scenes: Josef recalled the polyglot workers of Butte’s
Timon and his flatterers froze several times history: they were boyish in their mannerisms
in the midst of a toast or gift-giving so that but devoted workers who voiced outrage at
Apemantus could deliver his cynical com- those who betrayed Timon. They learned to
mentary to the audience. solemnly follow the Steward’s commitment to
However, there are limits to Apemantus’ a more sustainable human and natural
philosophy in both the original play and the community.
adaptation. His stance tends to be arrogant Any environmentally placed production
and judgemental; although he brags that he needs to take account of both the human and
does not need human society, he cannot seem the non-human world. The language of Timon
to keep himself from coming to the city and of Athens provides an instructive starting point
telling its dwellers the errors of their ways. In for such an examination. The word ‘dog’
Timon of Anaconda Apemantus was envi- occurs seventeen times in the original play.39
sioned as a Montana woodsman who spent It is frequently a term of invective and usually
most of his time living off the land as if he were used by Apemantus or in reference to him. As
an old-time mountain man. His desire to live the etymology of their name suggests, cynics
in accordance with nature seemed commend- were associated with dogs in Ancient Greece,
able at the beginning of the performance, but for they sought to live in accordance with
his rants were sometimes suggestive of self- nature, but they also had a tendency to ‘bark’
righteous environmentalism. Furthermore, at humans, pointing out their errors. By ele-
although he made some effort to help Timon, vating animals above humans, cynics pro-
Apemantus was ultimately a libertarian who fessed freedom from the bonds of desire and
preferred to keep to himself: he had no interest acquisition that plagued human society.
in integrating human and non-human reci- A historical dog from Butte is an integral
procity into larger communities. part of Timon of Anaconda. This stray dog lived
Along with the other servant characters near Berkeley Pit from at least 1986 until 2003.
(called Frankie and Josef in this adaptation), He was nicknamed ‘The Auditor’ by the
the Steward represents the central possibility miners, who sometimes fed him, because he
of hope in Timon of Anaconda.38 Given the time would show up unexpectedly and then
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31Figure 5. Riley O’Toole as Apemantus with ‘The Auditor’ dog. Photo: Kevin Brustuen.
disappear again. His fur was hideously dread- ultimately helped to underline Apemantus’
locked and, at one point, a sample of it was shortcomings as a detached and self-righteous
sent to a lab for analysis, which revealed that environmentalist (Figure 5). He was pleased
the dog’s fur contained elevated levels of to sit among humans, brandish his canteen,
many toxins, including 128 times the normal and smugly smile at the hypocrisy of Ana-
level of arsenic.40 The Auditor has become a conda/Butte. However, when Apemantus
sort of mascot of Butte, a testimony that it is met Timon in the wilderness, ‘The Auditor’
possible to survive in difficult conditions, as ultimately chose the misanthrope because it
the city has. For others, the misshapen dog is was he who better understood, and lived, the
an emblem of environmental degradation. interdependence of all living systems.
Disconcertingly, his ashes were sprinkled
over the Granite Mountain Memorial Out-
Reclaiming the Tragic Ending
look, which commemorates the 168 men
who died in a mining fire in 1917. The Auditor Timon of Athens stands in an uncertain position
thus seems simultaneously to represent in the Shakespearean canon for many reasons,
Butte’s proud history, the interlinking of not the least of which is that it seems to defy
human and animal worlds, and the monstrous audience expectations with regard to genre.
outcome of our unbridled use of the earth’s Much of its tone is satirical. The First Folio
resources. announces it as the ‘Life’ of Timon of
In the Timon of Anaconda performance the Athens, and yet the second half of the play,
dog originally belonged to Apemantus, but in particular, seems to pull it in the direction of
eventually stayed with Timon in his pit. The tragedy. As a tragedy, though, the play is
use of a real dog as ‘The Auditor’ reinforced ultimately unsatisfying: the titular character
bestial language in the script and also dies as an unrepentant misanthrope, offstage,
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32
https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X20000779of unexplained causes, leaving behind two epitaph to him – a piece of tree bark with
somewhat contradictory epitaphs. Such loose words written upon it. However, the Foreman
ends in the original play, however, become did not show any great interest in Timon’s
opportunities to re-imagine an alternative to passing. He read the epitaph’s words (‘Here
tragedy, not just for this play, but for a planet lie I, Timon, who alive all living men did hate, /
in peril. Pass by and curse thy fill, but pass and stay not
Timon of Anaconda’s main character dies here thy gait’, 5.5.70–1), but then distractedly
offstage, as he does in the original, after discarded the piece of bark, focusing on his
cursing and uttering the nihilistic-sounding deal with the senators whom he followed back
philosophy that ‘nothing brings me all things’ to the city. In this devastated landscape, the
(5.2.73). Although the production did not Steward reflected upon the horrible resting
explicitly depict a cause of Timon’s death, place for her master, gesturing to the Berkeley
we talked about a likely scenario in which he Pit when saying, ‘Dead, then. And this his
ingested a poisonous root. On a practical level, grave’ (5.4.5). She picked up the epitaph again
he did not possess the skills to live off the land and read the part of it that Alcibiades ignored
like Apemantus. But on a metaphorical level, – a message that gives a much more ecological
as he sought for the ‘right nature’ which can reading of his death: ‘Timon is dead, who hath
sustain life, perhaps he was fated to eat a root outstretched his span, / Some beast read this, there
that grew in soil poisoned by the by-products does not live a man.’42
of the mining industry that once made In Timon of Athens, when Alcibiades hears
him rich. of Timon’s death, he says:
The most extensive script changes in the
adaptation occurred in the final scene, after Though thou abhorred’st in us our human griefs,
Timon’s exit. This scene takes place on the Scorned’st our brains’ flow and those our
droplets which
outskirts of Butte, in what was once an amuse-
From niggard nature fall, yet rich conceit
ment park called Columbia Gardens.41 This Taught thee to make vast Neptune weep for aye
park caught fire in 1973, and shortly thereafter On thy low grave, on faults forgiven.
was swallowed by the ever-expanding (5.5.73–7)
appetite of Berkeley Pit. The citizens of Butte
suspected the Anaconda Company of deliber- These lines were used as the final speech of
ately setting the fire, and because the residents Timon of Anaconda, this time spoken by the
especially valued Columbia Gardens, this was Steward in a slightly altered version:
a breaking point in the company’s ability to
hold on to economic power over the city. This Though he abhorred in us our human griefs,
warlike struggle was echoed in the adaptation Scorned our brains’ flow and those our droplets
which
as Alcibiades marched angrily into this devas- From frugal nature fall, yet rich conceit
tated area, threatening the once-powerful sen- Taught him to make the rising water weep
ators not only with a labour strike, but with On his low grave, on faults forgiven.
complete destruction. As in the original play,
the senators begged him to change his mind Shakespeare’s figure of weeping Neptune to
and not sack the city. In this adaptation, how- describe Timon’s seaside grave suggests an
ever, Alcibiades’ acquiescence to the senators’ agency in nature that is able to rebuke yet
demands was portrayed explicitly as a capitu- mourn for the humans who have injured it,
lation (he signed a contract they pulled out of a and ultimately to reclaim them. In order to
briefcase) not because he sought personal gain, make this point stronger in the adaptation,
but because he was focused on putting his men the script’s reference to ‘rising water’ empha-
back to work, unconcerned about any wider sized the continued and increasing problem of
impact made by the mining industry. the sludge that cannot be held back by dams
At this moment, the Steward came with indefinitely. It also globalizes this local catas-
news of Timon’s death and handed the trophe within the rising waters of the planet,
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33thereby making Timon an Anthropocene spirit of collective affective acknowledgement
Everyman. and mourning which is the transformative
After delivering this speech, the Steward ethos for Anthropocene humans to live more
was joined by Frankie and Josef, who hugged respectfully and responsibly with the non-
her in a spirit of sorrow and loss. She signalled human world.
to these young people that they must now As a town, Butte has limped along in recent
clean up the wreckage. Dead geese props decades, but lately it has shown not only resil-
had been pre-set, alluding clearly to the mul- ience but also vitality, for the citizens have
tiple incidents of snow geese dying when they found ways to celebrate the rich and diverse
landed on the pit. But there was also garbage communities of people who have lived in this
on the ground, some that was pre-set, but area. Indeed, the importance of reclamation is
some that was a by-product of the audience not only about Butte’s ecological systems but
that came to watch a performance in an out- also about cultural ones. An annual folk festi-
door location. Frankie and Josef cleaned up val now attracts thousands of visitors who
pieces of trash along with the geese, then appreciate the healing potential of music.45
returned to the Steward. At that moment, The Imagine Butte Resource Centre brings
the dog came onstage, alone. When the Stew- together diverse creative projects in the visual
ard and other servants reached out to touch arts,46 and a programme called Butte Elevated
the monstrous dog, they accepted the off- strives to enhance the quality of life in Butte,
spring of the Anthropocene as part of moving pointing out that ‘Our community offers res-
toward a sustainable future.43 idents access to thousands of acres of pristine
This ending was not meant to be naïvely wilderness, spectacular mountain views,
redemptive, but to suggest that we all contain affordable living, quality schools, extraordi-
the toxic by-products of industrial mining, narily clean water, and an unparalleled qual-
and thus all share not only the guilt but also ity of life’.47 Such initiatives refuse to turn
the solutions. The Steward and his fellow ser- Butte into a graveyard. And even within
vants were poised to consider a new way of Berkeley Pit’s lake, unexpected life forms
operating in this world, one that takes full emerge: extremophiles that can exist in acidic
measure of our earth from a position that environments.48 Scientists are studying these
resists the destructive anthropocentrism of microbes because they produce compounds
the past. By ending with the Steward and this that might be used as antibiotics and even as
tone, Timon of Anaconda emphasized the cancer treatments.49 From opposite ends of
shared guilt of Butte’s past, but also gestured the spectrum, the arts programmes and the
towards possible futures that require forgiv- extremophiles provide evidence that life, in
ing faults, even egregious ones that created fact, does continue. Timon of Anaconda reflects
environmental catastrophe. Reflecting upon the spirit of reclamation that is found in Butte,
this ending, one observer wrote: resisting the tragic ending of a man who liter-
ally digs his own grave.
The flocks of birds who landed on the toxic waters
were poisoned and left for man to gather and dis-
pose of. As Frankie and Josef walk the perimeter of Conclusion(s)
the stage for the final scene of Timon of Anaconda the
audience begins to feel the pit left by the death of When I first worked on Timon of Athens, I often
Timon fill. The reality of Berkeley Pit and the effects thought of Michelangelo’s unfinished sculp-
of copper processing still scar that land reaching tures that have come to be known as ‘The
out from the pavilion where we sat, but we sat as a
community. A community considering what now Prisoners’. Initially I used this metaphor
together.44 because of the play’s ‘messy’, unfinished,
and collaborative nature, equating its rough
As this comment shows, the tragic dimensions edges with these bodies that are in the process
of this adaptation served as a catharsis for of coming out of marble, but remain incom-
the community (‘weep[ing] for aye’) in a plete. Revisiting the play to create Timon of
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34
https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X20000779Anaconda, however, I began to see that the it is the undisturbed earth that precedes either
Prisoners are also a symbol of our embedded- performance or capitalism, and once overturned
and stripped of ore, it will never be the same, and
ness in the material world. Like Timon, and
our only, small hope is to map a restorative, global
like so many of us, the Prisoners seem to desire relationship with the earth.53
to escape from their material trappings, but
are unable to free themselves.50 The mapping necessary for such restoration
In one of the striking photos in his ‘Anthro- requires a look at the aerial photos of areas
pocene’ catalogue, Edward Burtynsky shows such as the Berkeley Pit – a zooming out,
the excavation of a massive wall of marble in as Burtynsky’s huge images do, in order to
Italy – the necessary industrial extraction for understand the full scope of the damage and
the building blocks of statues. As the artist our place within it. Such views are enabled by
comments more broadly: ‘What this civiliza- standing at the Granite Mountain Overlook in
tion leaves in the wake of its progress may be Butte, and by standing in four-hundred-year-
the opened and emptied earth, but in perform- old plays as well.
ing these incursions we also participate in the Timon of Anaconda could well speak again
unwitting creation of gigantic monuments to in Butte and beyond, adapted to other com-
our way of life.’51 munities and ecosystems ravaged by the min-
Burtynsky leads me to conclude with one ing industry. There is no shortage of these
more anecdote about Butte – a monument in places on our planet. The reverberation of
the form of a 90-foot statue of the Virgin Mary Timon’s voice in such sites creates a space for
called Our Lady of the Rockies that stands reflection and a new space for rebuilding com-
above the town on the continental divide. munities on the other side of the toxic flood.54
This statue was built from 1979 to 1985 in
honour of mothers everywhere. The fund-
raising for and construction of this monu-
ment was meant to become a symbol of Notes and References
Butte’s need to heal its broken economy and 1. This quotation is from Timon of Athens (5.2.99–108),
with some script alterations, including a place-name
environment. The fully lit ethereal statue change from ‘Athens’ to ‘Butte’ and an adjustment of
glows every night and is intended to cast a the line ‘beached verge of the salt flood’ to ‘gouged verge
benevolent eye over the citizens of Butte. Yet of toxic flood’. Quotations from Timon of Athens are
from the Arden 3 edition, ed. Anthony B. Dawson and
every human monument comes at an envi- Gretchen E. Minton (London: Cengage, 2008).
ronmental cost. The erection of Our Lady of the 2. Superfund sites are polluted locations in the United
Rockies required blowing up a rock formation States requiring a long-term response to clean up hazard-
ous material contaminations.
called Saddle Rock, bulldozing a road to the 3. I helped to develop the 2017 Montana Shakespeare
top of a mountain, building a 425-tonne con- in the Parks’ production of Macbeth, which was set in
crete base, and employing National Guard a future Montana that had suffered a climate-change-
induced environmental and societal catastrophe. In the
helicopters to lift the Virgin Mary on to this fall of 2019, I was similarly the dramaturg for the Boze-
pedestal.52 man Actors Theatre performance of Ibsen’s Enemy of the
This ironic continuation of the mindset that People, which dealt with water contamination and the
distrust of scientific evidence in a way that made connec-
caused the environmental problems in the tions to contemporary Montana.
first place shows that Butte, like so many other 4. Readings in Performance and Ecology, ed. Wendy
locations around the globe, stands as a mon- Arons and Theresa J. May (New York: Palgrave Macmil-
lan, 2012), p. 4.
ument to human ambition and its grave costs. 5. I created five substantially different versions of
Nonetheless, a focus on the material remains, Timon of Anaconda. The first was read and workshopped
while reflecting upon Timon’s ecological with seven actors in December 2018. The second went
through a similar process with a different group of eight
dimensions, generates a place for further dis- people (a mixture of actors, professors – including an
cussion. As one audience member in Butte ecologist – and students) in January 2019. The third ver-
wrote: sion was read and commented on by a Butte citizen. The
fourth version became the basis for the performance that
took place in Bozeman and Butte on 7 and 8 September
Perhaps the hyperreal aspect reminds us that, 2019. The fifth reflects the script changes that took place
whether in Elizabethan England or Butte, Montana, over the course of rehearsal and performance.
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35You can also read
