Modern twist to ancient Greeks

DIRECTOR Greg Doran and his talented company certainly had a great time getting as many laughs as possible from this, a play generally accepted as Shakespeare’s most problematic, yet most modernistic tale.

In doing so, he ensured that every one of the theatre’s facilities was exploited to the fullest extent, most memorably in Evelyn Glennie’s percussive accompaniment. And in the set which moved with consummate ease from the confines of the besieged Troy to the encampments of the Greek invaders here ensconced in their ‘tents’ fitted out from extremely modern lorry containers, and where the prologue descended from the roof in a spherical orb, here providing an extra dimension to the ‘wooden O’ of an earlier play.

Set in the end-game of the seven-year-long Trojan war, the main problem with this play is that it isn’t really about Troilus and Cressida at all. They are characters whose tale of physical love sacrificed to the greater good of patriotism serves as a sub-plot to the main discourse of the play.

This is concerned with the inevitability of human conflict in times where none of the combatants have any real desire to engage in war, but who are drawn into taking up positions from which they cannot escape.

The Greeks are portrayed as rather tired ancient ex-Hells Angels, arriving in ‘ton-up’ machines and macho bullhorns, while the Trojans spend most of their time in endless debate about who should be the greatest hero of them all.

Thus there is no real tragedy at all, just the vagaries of the ‘chances of war.’

Acting of the highest quality is evident throughout in this Royal Shakespeare Company production.

I particularly liked Oliver Ford Davies’ portrayal of the matchmaker Pandorus who developed every ounce of humour from his eventually tragic descent into dotard, while still retaining the wit to ensure that the nascent lovers had access to their private bedroom, and Sheila Reid as the fool Thersites whose wonderfully sculptured features provided a meaningful counterpoint to the strutting manly figures of the supposed heroes surrounding her.

Ajax certainly charmed the younger members of the audience as a posing, bombastic buffoon, while Andrew Langtree, as a totally repugnant incoherent Menelaus, showed how justified Helen was to ally herself to Paris and set the whole ball game rolling in the first place.

Amber James, as Cressida, suggested enough of herself to be the holder of spirit and a survival instinct sufficient to cope with the indignity of being traded off to the Greek camp for the return of a simple serving soldier.

Unusually, too, I felt that the gender role reversals in this play had some point to them. Had Amanda Harris as the Trojan career soldier, Aeneas, been in full charge of her camp, there would have been no way in that the war against the bumbling fantasist Greeks would have been lost, and Adjoa Andoh made a very compelling Ulysses in her lengthy comments on the action.

Some effective moments of Brechtian alienation throughout the play brought another dimension to the innovative modernisation of the play, although I felt that the introduction of the pistol shot - used by Hector to dispatch Patroclus, immediately after some very nifty, thunderous swordplay, was somewhat incongruous.

Surely the Greeks would have run away in terror at such a discovery of hitherto unknown and powerful weaponry. This interpretation of T & C is altogether a production well worth seeing.

It is hugely enjoyable. It shows of the many technical possibilities of the newish auditorium at its best, allied to excellent comic acting, and a stimulating, novel, and modernistic direction.

I just can’t help feeling, however, that had William Shakespeare been transported to the modern age, where we all have such dramatic evidence of the bestiality of siege warfare as seen almost nightly the world over on our television screens; from Syria and The Yemen, to Iraq and Libya, and in the Gaza Strip, he could not have brought himself to write such a gently mocking, almost unconcerned play.

Running time is three hours plus a 20 minutes interval.

BGB