Theatre review: Troilus and Cressida(Shakespeare's Globe)

If Hamlet's most famous question is asked by the title character, Troilus and Cressida's is asked by the audience, shortly after the play ends with the playwright bestowing a wish for sickness upon them: Will, u OK hun? Owen Horsley makes his Globe debut directing Shakespeare's most misanthropic, uncategorisable play, that uneasily mixes broad comedy with imagery soaked in disease, disappointment and decay. Taking The Iliad as its starting point, the play opens seven years into the Trojan War, with a stalemate exacerbated by the Greeks' indestructible warrior Achilles (David Caves) disillusioned and refusing to fight, instead staying in his tent with his demon twink boyfriend Patroclus (Tadeo Martinez.) When the Trojans' best fighter Hector (Oliver Alvin-Wilson) challenges the Greeks to send their own best against him, Ulysses (Jodie McNee) sees an opportunity to trick Achilles into rejoining the war.

Meanwhile in Troy a tonally very different story that only just about links up to the Greek one by the end is unfolding as Pandarus (Samantha Spiro) pimps out her niece Cressida (Charlotte O'Leary) to Prince Troilus (Kasper Hilton-Hille.)

Despite the lascivious language it's couched in by Pandarus, this may be an actual love match, but it's scuppered when Cressida is traded to the Greeks. Promising to stay faithful, she's challenged by the reality of how she's treated once in the camp, and a spying Troilus is quick to judge her. In the first half Horsley's production leans most heavily on the comedy, taking Shakespeare's satire of what passes for heroism and making it a twisted picture of celebrity culture: Helen and Paris posing for selfies and flogging merch, the warriors strutting around in padded muscle suits.

The darkest moment comes after the interval when Cressida has been traded to the Greeks and is surrounded by sexually threatening soldiers; it's hard to square with the tone that's come before and signals the start of the play's descent into extraordinary bitterness.

Although Horsley has definitely found his own take on the play's grotesqueness, from the usually perfectly decent seats at the side of the stage the design does seem to hugely hamper the experience: Ryan Dawson Laight's design is dominated by an enormous statue's foot, which not only further blocks the view but also forces a lot of the action forwards, leaving those of us sitting stage left somewhat left out of proceedings. I don't know if this is also contributing to worse acoustics than usual, but there's a real divide among the cast between those who are audible and those who aren't, and it definitely doesn't help with making the story comprehensible.

What I will take away as a really interesting element of the evening is the choice of how the characters are doubled. There's simple examples, like Matthew Spencer playing both Helen's husband Menelaus and Paris, the man who stole her from him. Then there's Helen herself, the empty figure of glamour blamed for the war: Lucy McCormick also plays the acidic clown Thersites, arguably one of the most rancid characters in a play full of them, and yet the production deliberately blurs the lines over which character is which at times. Meanwhile McNee is Cassandra, whose words are always true but never believed, as well as Ulysses, whose verbal tricks can convince anyone, but always have his own interests at heart. At times a frustrating evening that felt like we weren't being let in on the complete picture, but definitely some interesting ideas in there.

Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare is booking in repertory until the 26th of October at Shakespeare's Globe.

Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Helen Murray.