Synopsis Written around 1601 the play is set in Troy and the Greek camp outside the walls during the great siege. Trolius loves Cressida, daughter of a Trojan priest who has defected. The siege goes on all around with tales of Ajax and Achilles but no real progress. Troilus and Cressida are parted when Cressida is exchanged for a Trojan prisoner and we leave the siege still as fruitless as ever. World Premiere Young Hearts Season
The first Troilus and Cressida at the Globe is not the best I’ve seen, nor the worst, by a long chalk, and Matthew Dunster’s production keeps an audience busy with its parade of characters in a play often thought of as Shakespeare’s most intellectual and consciously philosophical drama.
So it’s a tribute to Dunster’s clarity of staging that a Globe audience, even one spattered with rain or diverted by multiple fainting fits - I witnessed at least four at the opening matinee - stays with the action from start to finish, even though the Greeks remain camped outside the Trojan gates as they have been for the past seven years…
Dunster and his savvy production team of designer Anna Fleischle, composer Olly Fox, choreographer Aline David and fight director Kevin McCurdy have devised a visually strong and muscular milieu, the ongoing campaign represented in an opening slow motion battle sequence, with Trojans differentiated in blue tunics under leather jerkins and every bare-torsoed hero tattooed within an inch of his life.
They appear for us, these Greek demi-gods, as they do before Laura Pyper’s pretty, gamine and impressionable Cressida, from Matthew Flynn’s imposing Agamemnon and Jay Taylor’s seductive “honey Greek” Diomedes - Cressida’s near-nemesis - right through to the vigorous authority of John Stahl’s notable Nestor and Chinna Wodu’s fine Ajax.
Unusually, Ulysses is done with a winning lightness of touch by Jamie Ballard, his two great speeches landing with devastating effect, like volleys of punches in the ring, and these counterbalance the scattergun cynicism of Paul Hunter’s ferrety, one-eyed Thersites with his refrain of wars and lechery echoing through the military councils.
Pyper and Paul Stocker as Troilus make an appealing young couple blown about on the edge of the battlefield, while Matthew Kelly puts in another outstanding performance as Pandarus, embracing the whole theatre in his devious and splendidly articulated bed-plotting, bending this way and that like an overgrown willow and leering at all the exposed male flesh like a superannuated brothel-creeper with naughty ideas fast outstripping his potency. A rewarding production, well worth the effort.
A weak and dumbed down production. Much of Shakespeare's language replaced with bland translations. The word is important. so please leave in words like 'orgulous' and 'consanguinity'.
Thersites shines (but it's a very good role). Funny turn from Ajax. A good Hector. Troilus weak. Cressida was from another play. Achilles was a ludicrous skinny chap with a Welsh accent. He wore make-up designed to look like he was wearing joke spectacles. Elsewhere actors look rather uncomfortable.
That said even a bad production is worth seeing.
PS Very good programme notes. - Kit Marlowe
22 Sep 09
Shockingly bad - so relieved to be on the end of a row. Able to escape after 5 minutes in a suitable hiatus. If I could give it a minus score, I would. - Aine
21 Sep 09
I was not familiar with Troilus & Cressida so a test of any production is whether it is comprehensible. By and large Matthew Dunster succeeds. It is not his fault that the warring Greeks and Trojans seem to spend most of the time socialising with each other and the ending is frustratingly inconclusive. Dunster's version of Cressida is more romantic than Shakespeare intended, although more believable, and there are some very variable performances. Ania Sowiski doubles as a mildly bonkers Cassandra and a strikingly horny Helen, but Ben Bishop is a leaden, oafish Paris. Christopher Colquhun is a charismatic Hector but Paul Stocker is a bit of a wimp as Troilus. Chinna Wodu's Mr. T impression as Ajax is game for a laugh as is, appropriately, Matthew Kelly, gamely recreating his camp telly persona as Pandarus. Best of all is the adorably cute Laura Pyper as a spirited and sensual Cressida. She did not appear to have given herself willingly to Diomedes, which might be a director's invention but was much more plausible for a character so obviously devoted to Troilus. Despite some faults and directorial conceits this was an exciting production and part of a very good Globe season. - David Baxter
06 Sep 09
Another patronising production of Shakespeare in London, where we ought to be able to expect sophisticated renderings. The comedy was done quite well but was allowed to swamp all the play's other moods, and nearly all the gravity and intellectual complexity of the play was cut. That said, Laura Pyper was a perfect Cressida. - Thomas Karshan
04 Sep 09
The company played as an ensemble in this very difficult play and gave full committment. The range of different voices worked perfectly well. Troilus was truthful and convincing. Cressida was really well cast and acted. Achilles had a knee injury and bravely carried on. Much much better than the reviews in the papers would have you believe. - Hilary Lister
14 Aug 09
Granted, this is a difficult play, but this was a disappointing production. Much of Shakespeare's poetry was obscured by the performers' delivery, or seemed to have been cut by the director, including Pandarus' curtain speech, which was unrecognizable from the original. The acting was hugely uneven, especially the use of the voice. Some performers mumbled, and a wild range of local accents were apparent. There was a dull sameness in the rhythm of the vocal delivery for most performers that became tedious (except when they were engaging in over-the-top screaming or shouting). The very amusing and sardonic Thersites was a notable exception. The otherwise decorative warriors were tatooed to excess. There was some very odd staging--in fact, the whole production seemed staged for a proscenium rather than the Globe's thrust stage. Troilus' witnessing of Cressida's semi-tryst with Diomedes was confusing, with Troilus hovering immediately behind Cressida like a wraith when he should be lurking more reasonably in the dark, as Shakespeare suggested. Hector's death was placed on stage instead of offstage in Shakespeare's original--fine--but he didn't lift a finger to defend himself in a largely ritualistic execution that seemed out of place with the vigorous swordplay (actually one of the high notes of the evening) seen earlier between him and Ajax. These are just a few of the strange notes that I would have to lay at the feet of the director. After an enormously successful "As You Like It" at the Globe the previous night, this was a letdown. - William O. Beeman
A rebuild of Shakespeare's original Globe theatre close to the original site. Society of London Theatre member. Note: Booking opened March 3rd 1996. Tickets for performances range from £5 (standing in the yard) to £37.50 for the best gallery seats). Induction loop facilities. Wheelchair facilities. Extensive education programme. Restaurant, cafe and bar. Dark during the winter but the museum and venue remain open. One of the few London venues with Sunday performances. The Globe Theatre Season runs from April to October. The Globe Education Centre is located in Park Street and runs an educational autumn season.
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