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Who’d have thought that the must-see autumn Shakespeare in London would be this Trojan War oddity rather than Hamlet at the National Theatre? Labelled a “problem” play because it blends a thwarted romance with discourses on battle, honour, sex and violence during the Greek siege of Troy, Troilus and Cressida often heaves into view in times of international conflict.
Owen Horsley’s bracingly ribald, mordant staging is a study of toxic masculinity in which war is treated as a game, or a reality show, that suddenly stops being funny. It features impressive performances from Kasper Hilton-Hille and Charlotte O’Leary in the ostensible lead roles, though they are marginalized by the dick-swinging of generals and warriors, and the scabrous commentary of the malcontent Thersites and the fixer, Pandarus.
Horsley’s greatest stroke is to gender-swap both these roles. Samantha Spiro – a mistress of grotesque comedy – exudes bawdy relish as “auntie” Pandarus, tottering on her heels and twittering filth. Meanwhile, the dazzling Lucy McCormick folds the role of prologue into that of her goth-girl Thersites – apparently a camp prostitute, to judge by her shabbily alluring raiment and bondage leggings – who generates an easy, sardonic rapport with the audience. McCormick also doubles as Helen of Troy, whose kidnap and violation started the bloodshed.
Midway, Helen is wheeled out in a skimpy sequined frock and frazzled perm to sing a love song to Trojan troops wearing masks of her face, only to suffer a breakdown at the microphone that is ignored. In another chilling scene, she is passed around the camp, prefiguring what happens to Cressida when she is traded to the Greeks at the request of her turncoat father. McCormick’s Thersites, frequently manhandled or attacked herself, becomes our proxy critic of these dreadful men.
They are also ridiculous. Early on, the flower of Troy’s fighting youth parade before Cressida in bulbously muscled, spangly bodysuits, as Pandarus nudges her towards Troilus. Jonathan Livingstone’s Agamemnon is a smug politician, David Caves’s Achilles an imposing Ryan Gosling lookalike gone to paunchy seed, holed up in his tent with his toyboy Patroclus and refusing to fight. Ibraheem Toure’s heroically stupid Ajax is shuffled into his place to fight the Trojan champion Hector (a cool, contained Oliver Alvin-Wilson). The absurdity of this war is summed up in Hector’s acknowledgment: “Thou art, Ajax, my father’s sister’s son.”
There are further, clever acts of doubling. Tadeo Martinez plays the preening Patroclus and Alexander, the latter reinvented as a smooth, white-suited TV host. Matthew Spencer is both Helen’s husband Menelaus and her abductor Paris – two sides of the same entitled, misogynist coin. Jodie McNee is a wily, conniving Ulysses and also Cassandra, reimagined as an anti-war protestor. Everyone uses their own accents so the play becomes a polyglot hubbub of English, Welsh, Irish and American.
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The design, by Ryan Dawson Laight, is arresting, dominated by a huge, shattered statuary foot that makes one think of Shelley’s Ozymandias, and a Vegas-style illuminated sign pointing to Troy. The costumes (supervised by Laura Rushton) are also apt, grubby blue-grey uniforms for the encamped Greeks and orange-and-peach athleisure for the hubristic Trojans. The tuba and trombone parpings of Eamonn O’Dwyer’s score prick the vanity of both sides.
Hilton-Hille makes a passionate Troilus, O’Leary a spirited Cressida. Her apparent succumbing to her Greek jailer Diomedes feels, as ever, awkward and unsatisfactory, and Troilus’s anguish is swiftly overshadowed by Achilles’ cowardly murder of Hector. The play tails off into one final curse from Pandarus. Though supposedly written after Hamlet in around 1602, Troilus and Cressida is nowhere near as tonally or narratively coherent. Yet it becomes a vivid, kaleidoscopic exploration of human foibles in Horsley’s staging. A troubling play for troubling times.
To 26 Oct, shakespearesglobe.com.
