Theatre review: Troilus and Cressida (RSC / RST)

The thing about committing to doing the entire works of Shakespeare with no repetition is that at some point you have to knuckle down and do Troilus and Cressida. If you're the RSC you've also got the added pressure of hoping it doesn't get overshadowed by the memory of the last time you attempted it. Artistic Director Gregory Doran has taken the job on himself with a bombastic production that plays a few weeks in the middle of the "T" season, the high concept being that designer Niki Turner has taken inspiration from Mad Max (presumably the Tom Hardy rather than Mel Gibson version, as Agamemnon doesn't take time out to blame the Jews for the Trojan War) and composers Evelyn Glennie and Dave Price have created a cacophonous, percussion-heavy soundtrack that's meant to evoke the noise of a war dragging on indefinitely in the background. It's a clanging, crashing noise that Troilus (Gavin Fowler) is not so much haunted as irritated by after seven years of siege.

Priam's youngest son, Troilus does go into battle, but at the moment is mostly interested in getting noblewoman Cressida (Amber James) into bed.

Shakespeare's take on the Iliad is a notoriously unloved play, and while Doran's version is a watchable one it's not the production to convince that it's not the weird, nihilistic, rambling mess it's known as. Part of its strange tone, that saw it included in the original list of Problem Plays, is down to the fact that it splits its time between largely unrelated, and tonally very different stories in the Greek and Trojan camps. In the latter is the titular doomed romance - although even that description is a spurious one. I'm always ranting to nobody in particular about Romeo and Juliet's grand romance not being all it's cracked up to be but I don't have to with Troilus and Cressida, as Shakespeare does most of the work for me.

There may be some florid language in their courting but there's never any pretence that marriage is what they're after. This is about sex, which is why Cressida plays hard to get despite her interest - if Troilus leaves her after sex he'll face no consequences but she'll be seen as damaged goods. The feel of something seedy about their relationship comes from her uncle Pandarus' involvement. Oliver Ford Davies is one of those naturally likeable actors but his performance here undercuts that - there's something intensely creepy about just how interested he is in his niece's sex life, making Shakespeare's regular jokes about the fact that his name means "pimp" stand out.

Fowler's self-deprecating performance as Troilus and particularly James' steely Cressida make them a likeable couple but they're not even the focal point of their own play. Over in the Greek camp, general Agamemnon (Suzanne Bertish) is tired of the impasse between the two armies, and she knows she could tip the scales in her favour if her greatest warrior was actually fighting. But Achilles (Andy Apollo) has been staying in his tent for weeks shagging his boyfriend Patroclus (James Cooney) and the Greek Kings need a plan to get him back on the battlefield.

For a gay director Greg Doran has had a strange tendency in the past to play down potentially homoerotic relationships. I don't know whether it's that he's a generally conservative director or that he doesn't want to be accused by idiots of pushing an agenda, but I was worried he'd do the same here. Happily he does nothing of the sort - from their first entrance hastily pulling their trousers back on it's clear what Achilles and Patroclus' relationship is (and that the bisexual Achilles' interest in a Trojan princess is not seen as any kind of threat to it.)

And after a number of shows where designers and directors have been keeping Andy Apollo maddeningly overdressed, he spends pretty much the whole of this show with his shirt off (it's even thematically justified, as his Achilles is the kind of show-off jock who does weights outside his tent while pretending he doesn't know anyone's watching.) Cooney spends most of the show in the leather battle garb equivalent of a crop top, so basically if Achilles is all about the pecs, Patroclus is all about the abs.

What doesn't come across particularly is any connection between the dystopian future design and the production itself. The play is disjointed and remains so here: Much of the story builds up to a duel between Hector (Daniel Hawksford) and Ajax (Theo Ogundipe,) which is then called off within seconds of it starting because the two are distantly related and don't want to harm each other. The titular couple's story fizzles out, as does the play itself. There's a sense the Shakespeare is throwing his hands up at the pointlessness and stupidity of war.

In this play whose status as tragedy or comedy was always in dispute Doran leans more towards the latter, meaning it doesn't entirely come across as bleakly nihilistic (which arguably only makes its many loose ends odder.) Where he does focus is on the play as deconstruction of the classical heroes: Agamemnon is out of her depth, Achilles a braggart whose legendary strength comes down to getting his army to do his dirty work for him, and Adjoa Andoh's Ulysses, while undoubtedly clever, is ultimately a manipulative busybody. More of a grubby clown than the outright grotesque s/he often is, Sheila Reid's Thersites delights in the depths her supposed betters sink to.

If Troilus and Cressida is a problem play this production doesn't solve it, and drums and motorbikes aside I don't think it fares well out of the respectful 3-hours+ treatment it gets here. Editing it down a bit more probably wouldn't have hurt, and might even have highlighted the play's fractured nature in a different way. Having said that, the running time did seem to go by quite quickly, so even if the production feels somewhat at a loss to pin down quite what this play is, it's offering something to hold the interest.

And not just Andy Apollo's tits although yeah, mostly.

Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare is booking until the 17th of November at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Running time: 3 hours 15 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Helen Maybanks.