★★★
Shakespeare may be all-pervasive in Britain’s culture and education system, but that doesn’t mean all of his plays are equally respected. You’d be lucky to get to 16 without coming across Macbeth, Hamlet, or Othello—yet even the Bard’s greatest devotees might never quite get round to poor old Troilus and Cressida.
Here to right that wrong is director Owen Horsley, whose revival of the play accompanies the better-known Twelfth Night in The Globe’s end-of-year programme. Beginning in the midst of the seemingly endless Trojan War, the young prince Troilus (Kasper Hilton-Hille) falls head over heels for the beautiful Cressida (Charlotte O’Leary). However, the course of Shakespearean love never did run smooth, and the carnage surrounding the pair soon threatens to derail everything. Renowned hero Achilles (David Caves) is no more than a peroxide, pot-bellied joke refusing to fight, duplicitous Ulysses (Jodie McNee) is secretly running the show, and everyone is going mad for the notorious Helen of Troy (Lucy McCormick).
If this all sounds vaguely chaotic and directionless, be assured they don’t call it a “problem play” for nothing. It is impossible to categorise as any one genre: the tragedy is messy, the romance pushed to the margins, and the comedy suffocated by cynicism. The various plotlines crash around the stage, blurring and banging into each other until you’re not quite sure what the story actually is. Perhaps most unsettling of all is its complete lack of an ending. None of the strands find resolution, and you’d be forgiven for not realising the final scene was indeed the last until the cast gather for the bows.
Yet though this be madness, there is method in’t. Horsley plays up Shakespeare’s sharp satire on power, the futility of war, and undeserved hero worship to high impact. The obsequious Alexander (Tadeo Martinez) holds up an “APPLAUSE” sign whilst the Trojan warriors parade across the stage in exaggerated bronze muscle suits, and later hand out “Leave Helen Alone” t-shirts from a merch stall. Helen herself wears a flapper-esque gold dress, performs an elaborate dance routine, and sings a tribute to love’s virtues, before admitting that it’s lechery which really rules them all.
Elsewhere, the large ensemble cast do a solid job of turning the chaos into order. Hilton-Hille makes an endearingly sweet Troilus to O’Leary’s spirited but self-conscious Cressida, whilst Samantha Spiro’s gender-swapped Pandarus provides much of the play’s comedic core with gusto. McCormick doubles up as Helen and the play’s derisive narrator Thersites to produce an intriguingly unbalanced performance which almost ties the various threads together.
It is also cleverly designed by Ryan Dawson Laight. Much of the stage is taken up by a giant, crumbling gold foot which perfectly sums up this strange world: crass, brash, and inches away from falling apart completely. The visual contrast between the grey-attired Greeks and incongruously peach Trojans is both enjoyably lurid and useful in distinguishing between the armies for any viewers not well-versed in ancient history. On the other hand, a scene in which multiple characters come onstage wearing masks of Helen’s face and The Globe’s official volunteers’ uniform is utterly bizarre and equally confusing.
So, although everyone does their best, you never end up quite persuaded that this is an underrated masterpiece. It’s hard not to feel that if it had no connection to that magic word “Shakespeare”, these doomed lovers and double-crossing soldiers would all have been forgotten long ago. Maybe the real reason for its obscurity is actually quite simple: it’s no Romeo and Juliet.
Troilus and Cressida will be performed at The Globe until 26 October.
Words by Eleanor Harvey
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