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You leave Troilus and Cressida […] with a sickening understanding of the complete uselessness of wars, of the senseless waste of life and of the manipulation of the masses by an élite few. You could, of course, argue that we already understand this, and that [this play] only reinforces our belief: this may be true, and if it is, [it] is none the worse for it.
Troilus and Cressida could appear to be a play about the love affair between Troilus and Cressida. In Ian Judge's carefully constructed production, the love affair is only one aspect of the play; it may be an important aspect, but it sits as equal partner with others. We build up a picture of war as little more than a big boys' game of strutting machismo: the only trouble with this game is that thousands of people get killed. Judge's production offers us a vast panoply of characters, very few of whom we emotionally engage with; we are stirred by the images, the tone and by the manner in which the play reaches us.
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Ian Judge has done a terrific job with Troilus. I confess that my heart sinks when confronted with this play: it's long (this production is over three and half hours, with more than 500 lines cut), there is a bewildering array of characters, and much of it is unfathomable. Judge has conceived a powerful overarching view of the play, not one which he has imposed on the play, but one which he has skilfully used to link the seemingly disparate elements so that the play coheres into a satisfying (if uncomfortable) whole.
The Greeks and the Trojans constantly appear as groups virtually indistinguishable as individuals and in may ways hardly to be distinguished from each other. In fact it is the size and shape of the soldiers' pectorals which mostly enables you to tell one from the other. while this may have made for diverting auditions, it is not incidental to the way the production worked - the self-regarding manliness of the soldiering, twin brother to the homo-erotic image of muscular men in the scant uniforms, constantly undermines the stated aims of war. These aims - duty, honour, right, wrong - get lost along the way; necessary hardly gets a look in.
Philip Voss as Ulysses is foremost among the Greeks. Voss smoothly handles each situation, gently persuades those around him to his point of view: he is an expert politician, delighting in the thought of the grandeur of his boys in the field of battle. He plays the all-important 'degree' speech with consummate ease and makes it memorable through great passion: "Take but degree away, untune that string, /and hark what discord follows". It is important that Voss makes this so memorable, for we need to make the link with Hector as the Trojans debate their confusion over whether to keep Helen of not. Hector virtually echoes Ulysses; there is a natural order which says that husbands and their wives should live together, that it's unnatural they should keep Helen: but then comes the sting. The Trojans, he says, will not return Helen because they'll look unmanly if they do. We remember that the Greeks criticise Achilles, not for his relationship with Patroclus, but because he won't go and fight - he, too, has become unmanly.
Suddenly the play begins to make sense. This is a world of posturing, preening cocks (as in male birds) who love themselves and the idea of themselves, who love the idea of their masculinity. Designer, John Gunter, with a touch of theatrical genius, transforms the battle field at the end of the play into a cat-walk for the soldiers to strut down. It is the men's narcissism that drives them to kill: love, whether it be Troilus for Cressida, or Achilles for Patroclus, has no place n this soldiers' world.
As Achilles, Philip Quast walks that difficult path between lover and soldier: he poses less than the manly men, but we never doubt his soldierly qualities. I wasn't totally convinced of his love for Patroclus, and it's a mistake to put Patroclus in long blond wig and a skirt: Patroclus is not a third rate drag act from a local Greek taverna which is what he looks like. It is difficult for Jeremy Sheffield to overcome this silliness, but full marks for him that he nearly succeeds.
Victoria Hamilton plays Cressida with great sensitivity. The role has its pitfalls, namely when she is handed over to the Greeks and in her scene with her new wooer, Diomedes (Richard Dillane). In this scene she is, not surprisingly, full of confusion: Hamilton plays with great passion so that she avoids archness. We share her confusion and her humiliation. Hamilton avoids the pitfalls with great skill.
Joseph Fiennes, however, is a disappointment as Troilus. Somehow he has not yet absorbed the role? He takes flying leaps at the emotional highs and lows, but the great passions never become part of him: we are aware constantly of him acting, and vocally his mannerisms become irritating.
Richard McCabe gives a characteristically wicked performance as Thersites. I love this actor's sense of comedy, I love the way he never steps outside the play to make selfish moments. In this production he is almost over-shadowed by Clive Francis as an extraordinarily camp Pandarus. Both of these characters have opening comic tours de force: part of Judge's strategy is clearly the chilling way they begin more and more to speak for us. Thersites' "Wars and lechery… nothing else holds fashion" rings in our ears until it is replaced with Pandarus" dying words, "I'll swat and seek about for eases,/And at that time bequeath you my diseases".
Many thanks to Emma for providing this review.
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