Troilus and Cressida

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.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 24 July 2009

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 differ...

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Latest User Review

Kit Marlowe - 22 September 2009:

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....

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