Troilus and Cressida

Dubbed one of Shakespeare’s problem plays, people – when they bother at all – debate that Troilus and Cressida is some genre mash of tragedy and comedy, satire or history.

Sean O’Riordan and his epic cast of 19 come close to a better, more radical truth.  This is a nihilistic world with vain empty characters; whether Trojan or Greek, all whores to love or war. 

O’Riordan has Homer’s warrior stars all strutting out in a celebrity fashion parade, which nicely sums it up.

The challenge is for actors to be good enough to engage us with vacuous heroes short on empathy. Matthew Bartlett and Jane Angharad are attractive romantic leads but this grandly-worded Troilus is ultimately insincere, just as Cressida is inexplicably two-timing when sent back to the Greeks.

Uncle Pandarus (Charles Upton) acts like a pimp in uniting them and damns all at the end, but our only true moral compass is the Greek slave Thersites. While young Danes Young is charismatic, he shouts away vital rapport with the audience. Emily Stubbs Gregoriou is strong as the prophesizing Cassandra, but no one listens to her!

As for the warriors, Shan-Ree Tan is a good political Ulysses; Margarita Gershkovich partly suggests a narcissistic Achilles; while Emma Wright is his/her male lover Patroclus. Grace Naoum does best with the gender-bending as the thrusting Ajax. 

Maya Keys’ set of sand, fallen sandstone and light curtains works cleanly, while her costumes – the Greeks Mad-Maxed into leathers, and the Trojans in looser Middle Eastern fare – bring clarity to this ambitious storytelling.  So does a good soundscape and pacy transitions.

It’s a long show but despite an uneven cast and lost theatrical punctuation, it lasts the distance.  Suddenly it’s gone and with it, these dangerously empty heroes.

Martin Portus