TROILUS AND CRESSIDA. To 9 September.
Edinburgh/Stratford-upon-Avon
TROILUS AND CRESSIDA
by William Shakespeare
King’s Theatre Edinburgh To 26 August
Mon-Sat 7pm Mat 24, 26 Aug 1pm no performance 22 Aug
then Royal Shakespeare Theatre Stratford-upon-Avon 31 August-9 September 2006
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat 2, 7, 9 Sept 1.30pm
Runs 3hr 35min One interval
TICKETS: 0131 473 2000
www.eif.co.uk (Edinburgh)
0870 609 1110
www.rsc.org.uk (Stratford-upon-Avon
Review: Timothy Ramsden 17 August
Better on the large-scale than with minutiae.
‘Sweet Master Shakespeare’ indeed. There’s nothing sweet about this play. No sweet prince to say goodnight to, as in Hamlet; no death-point consolation as in King Lear. Here is Juliet jilting Romeo. The running commentators are Thersites (Ian Hughes, dartingly provocative), forerunner of critical columnists worldwide, and Pandarus (Paul Jesson, fine through lumbered with unhelpful musical settings of lines) whose lover-matching sours till he finally curses the audience with his diseases.
The Trojan War’s 7 years into its stalemate. Ideals don’t survive that long; Thersites’ reductionist comments might be paralleled by any private in a Flanders trench. (Thersites himself is a coward open enough to make Falstaff blush.)
The Trojan War is a fine symbol of desolation. Two contrasting civilisations: Euro-Greeks, rational and grey, and Asiatic Trojans, with unnaturally burnished skins in Peter Stein’s production. They need never have fought but are now locked into combat owing to love – no, lechery.
Only one person sees beyond this; Trojan hero Hector. Richard Clothier’s dignified philosopher warrior expresses a wider vision than is contained within the robotic patrolling of Greek Ajax or the self-indulgent egoism of Achilles. Yet Hector ends skewered, held flat by spear-points as he’s killed in a revenge ambush.
Despite the war background, it’s possible to use Tolstoy’s opposites, naming Act I Peace and Act II War. Stein’s production works better in the second, battle-strewn half. For it’s the individuals who tend to be greyed-out on Stein’s huge canvas. Though actors like Ian Hogg and David Yelland always make a mark, they do so in a vacuum here.
Against its huge Trojan wall the set makes one point, as a huge bed swings down for Paris and Helen (Rachel Pickup’s dainty figure far from the fly-blown Helen of many productions). It contrasts the mattress Pandarus awkwardly manoeuvres through the gate for the eponymous lovers’ tryst.
Later, Shakespeare hardly helps explain Cressida’s betrayal of Troilus or the role her new lover Diomed played in instigating their affair. But there should be more indication than we’re given here (i.e. none). As throughout, Stein offers bold brushwork but details are often smudged.
Aeneas: Simon Armstrong
Hector: Richard Clothier
Calchas: Arthur Cox
Nestor: John Franklyn-Robbins
Agamemnon: Ian Hogg
Thersites: Ian Hughes
Pandarus: Paul Jesson
Ajax: Julian Lewis Jones
Menelaus: John Kane
Patroclus: Oliver Kieran-Jones
Paris: Adam Levy
Margarelon: Roger May
Cassandra: Kate Miles
Andromache: Charlotte Moore
Troilus: Henry Pettigrew
Helen: Rachel Pickup
Achilles: Vincent Regan
Cressida: Annabel Scholey
Priam: Jeffry Wickham
Diomedes: Richard Wills-Cotton
Ulysses: David Yelland
Director: Peter Stein
Designer: Ferdinand Wogerbauer
Lighting: Japhy Weideman
Sound: Ferdinando Nicci
Composer: Arturo Annecchino
Costume: Anna Maria Heinreich
Fight director: Malcolm Ranson
2006-08-22 14:27:50