User Reviews

Troilus And Cressida is one of the lesser-known Shakespeare plays. In fairness, there's no such thing as an obscure play by the Bard – they've ALL been performed and dramatised numerous times. But Troilus And Cressida certainly belongs on a list of the ones that everyday viewers are less familiar with, alongside titles like Pericles, King John and Timon Of Athens. It's a problematic play to put on stage or film, for sure… throughout, the text defies expectations and refuses to be pinned down into any single genre. One moment, you'd confident labelling it a history, the next it veers into comedy... and there's enough tragedy throughout the proceedings for it to be labelled one of those too.

During the Trojan Wars several soldiers from both sides find their motivation to carry on fighting wilting badly. Trojan Troilus (Anton Lesser) is lovestruck over the lowly maiden Cressida (Suzanne Burden), whose father recently defected to the Greeks; while in the Greek camp the fearsome Achilles (Kenneth Haigh) refuses to leave his tent to join in with the fighting and lives off former glories while his comrades die in combat on a daily basis. The great Trojan warrior Hector (John Shrapnel) issues a challenge to the Greeks, demanding that they send their best fighter to come and face him on the field. He expects this to rouse Achilles out of his self-imposed retirement. But the Greeks, especially cunning Ulysses (Benjamin Whitrow) see through his plan and send out one of their lesser warriors, Ajax (Anthony Pedley), to accept the challenge. Troilus eventually manages to consummate a relationship with Cressida, but the very next day she is traded over the Greeks to be with her father, in return for a captured Trojan warrior. Troilus is devastated and, in blind rage, rediscovers his lust for combat. Meanwhile, matters come to a head on the battlefield as Hector, Ajax, Achilles and others meet to fight it out for supremacy in the staled impasse of the war. All these events are commented upon by a pair of cynical, sharp-tongued onlookers from both sides, the Trojan Pandarus (Charles Gray) and the Greek Thersites (Jack Birkett).

Part of the ambitious BBC Shakespeare series (in which the Beeb ambitiously set themselves the target of filming every single Shakesperean play), this production is low-budget but well-done. The acting is pretty good overall – with Whitrow as Ulysses and Gray as Pandarus especially fine in their roles. There are a few examples of miscasting, most notably Birkett as Thersites. Blind in real life, Birkett is a very good actor… but horribly miscast as Thersites here: the delivery of the savage, bitter outbursts that make Thersites such a powerful character is camped-up too much and distorts the character. Also, a number of the great Greek and Trojan figures are played by actors who seem the wrong age for the roles – the likes of Aeneas, Nestor and Agamemnon, while well-played, are portrayed by actors considerably older than the play demands. There are some very memorable scenes during the course of the production, especially the brutal murder of Hector (a shot of Achilles standing on the crushed and bloodied head of his rival is extremely shocking) and the emotionally electrifying scene where Cressida learns she is to be traded to the enemy just hours after finally consummating her love for Troilus. As a satiric swipe at the nature of heroism, almost an attempt to subvert and ridicule heroic ideals, the production works very effectively. Some day, a really big budget and 'cinematic' version of this story may appear… until that day, this is a more-than-adequate substitute. Good stuff.

The key to understanding this most psychological of Shakespearean plays is to see it as a partial allegory where each of the main characters is a type of buffoon, more or less blind to his or her own weaknesses of character, more or, more usually, less master of their passions, whether that passion be for vengeance, lust, pride of beauty, pride of skill, or some other kind of selfishness. In fact, the primary, though not the only, use of human reason in this play is to put a seeming-fair face on what are really base and unworthy motivations.

To drive the point home, this general rule of baseness is shown to exist on both sides of the conflict. Both Trojans and Greeks rationalize their actions, questioning the worthiness of the quarrel and its object, Helen, who is shown to be little more than a pretty form and face, barely, if at all, worth the expenditure in wealth and life being spent to keep or attain her. In the end, after all the speechifying and examination, neither side is willing to give up the fight, though for shame they should. There is no moral high ground here and very little that can be called heroic.

As for the "romance" of Troilus and Cressida, it is little more than prostitution with a strong dose of idealization and projection on his part, the assumption of virtue where none really exists. She proves to be mutable in her affections, unable to sustain her attachment to Troilus when he is no longer physically in her line of sight. She remembers him, but her passion quickly dims and in the end is able to be deflected onto a much less noble and worthy an object for her "love". He proves to be a very poor judge of character, forming his opinion of Cressida primarily through the words of Pandarus, the "panderer", whose family interest in the matter colors his commentary. He means well, but his promises prove to be mere wishful thinking.

It should be said that in Shakespeare's day the story of Troilus and Cressida had wide currency and it's main features were well known at all levels of English society. The viewer of the play would have known what was going to happen and could focus in on the word-play and the ideas much more readily than we can on first exposure.

I find this play to be one of the very best of Shakespeare's plays. It is superior, in my opinion, even to Macbeth. In that play, the story is furthered by supernatural intervention; it's an example of active spiritual evil (witches and Hecate) pouring its poison into a willing because ambitious vessel. In Troilus and Cressida, the evil is more or less where the modern reader/viewer would place it, that is within the thoughts and understanding of the individual him or herself.

I rented this TV movie version of 'Troilus and Cressida' out of my library last thursday, and simply could not believe my eyes. Where should I begin? no effort was made to make the play look remotely like it was about the Trojan war, all the actors were wearing Elizabethan dress. Moreover, most of the actors were too old and horribly miscast - Aeneas (with his white beard) looked older than Nestor, Troilus was at least 30, Hector looked like a Spanish pirate, Ajax was badly played anyway and Thersites was a transvestite.

Likewise the action is poor, the duel between Ajax and Hector is short and amateurish, the camera angle focuses more on Nestor's face, so we can only see what is going on in the background which is frustrating in itself. Nor is the 'battle' at the end given it's due respect. We do not see Troilus and Diomedes fight, nor anyone else for that matter, Paris and Menelaus just seem to mud wrestle in front of Thersites. Even Patroclus death was omitted. All this was a major disappointment considering I waded through a very dull 2 and a half hours of BBC costume drama to get to that point.

Nonetheless, it wasn't all bad. I thought the Incredible Orlando as Thersites and John Shrapnel as Hector were well played, even if they didn't look quite right. I'd say the same about Kenneth Haigh as Achilles, since he didn't have the striking countenance and was a bit dry at times. SPOILER: The climax at the end - the death of Hector - was perhaps the best part of the film, Achilles' dialogue here is excellent and sums up the attitude of a cold, seasoned murderer. However, the gruesomeness of the scene (when Achilles stamps on what was Hector's head)sets it apart anyway.

Charles Gray as Pandarus was delightful as a sleazy old pervert and I thought the actress playing Cressida did an OK job. The war-mongering Troilus, however, was annoying and I think that the play would have been better perhaps if he had been murdered by Achilles instead of a peacenik like Hector.

Conclusion? OK, but could have been better if it had had a younger cast and costumes that at least attempted to look Ancient Grecian, not to mention the lack of action. 5/10

"Troilus and Cressida", based on the Greek legend of lovers Troilus and Cressyd, is not one of Shakespeare's best plays. The dialogue is too knotty, with a lot of characters making big speeches about very little and the best characters in the play are woefully underused.

I liked this version, as it showcases the best qualities of the play including the character of Pandarus (Charles Gray), who tries to help the lovers Troilus (Anton Lesser) and Cressida (Suzanne Burden) in the midst of the Trojan war. Unlike Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare's other famous tragic couple, these two are actually on the same side but their union is jeopardised when Cressida is bargained away by her father in exchange for a prisoner...

Asides from Gray, who gives a wonderfully camp turn as Pandarus, the brilliant Jack Birkett (aka the Great Orlando) gives a brilliant turn as Greek fool Thersites, his Mancunian twang making the most of the language. The two lovers when they get a look in are very well written and played, but their story is too overshadowed by the tedious political chicanery going in the rest of the play.

Worth checking out, especially after the recent Shakespeare's Globe production.

This play is extremely rare on stages or on screens. It was written in 1602. The story is very simple: it is the fall of Troy but not with the Trojan horse that we all know, just the final battle that started as a challenge from Ulysses to Hector.

Yet the play is centered on the fate of Troilus and Cressida, Trojan prince and princess, deeply in love who just got united when they learn that the Trojans and the Greeks have agreed on a swap to compensate the loss of Helen, the gift of Cressida to some Greek prince, to become something between a mistress and a sex slave.

But the play is best described if we speak of the style because the style is the descriptive means Shakespeare uses to render this quasi-fraternal fight over the possession of a woman. Helen is here depicted as a wanton sensual and mindless woman who is only looking for love, meaning physical love and nothing else. Hector is thus enamored with a beautiful animated picture.

That style is dominated by chiasmic oxymora like "With such a careless force and forceless care". He also uses extremely well built and perfectly balanced enumerations like

"HELEN: In love, in faith, to the very tip of the nose. Paris: He eats nothing but doves, love; and that breeds hot blood, and hot blood begets hot thoughts, and hot thoughts beget hot deeds, and hot deeds is love. PANDARUS. Is this the generation of love: hot blood, hot thoughts, and hot deeds? Why, they are vipers. Is love a generation of vipers?"

This is very special in Shakespeare. He builds a triangular structure that is framed with the same beginning and end. He builds a circle and he makes that vicious circle turn with repetitions: "doves/love – breeds hot blood – hot blood – begets hot thoughts – hot thoughts – beget hot deeds – hot deeds – love." It is a structured piling up of three ternary elements thus reaching the diabolical nine: "doves/love/love – breeds/begets/beget – hot blood/hot thoughts/ hot deeds" (doubled up to six by systematic repetition). The structure is thus: (A1-A2 – {B1-(C – C) – B2-(D – D) – B2-(E – E)} – A2)

The whole play uses that style of three embedded in three embedded in three with embracement of the whole by the extreme elements . Three is in Shakespeare the symbol of disorder as expressed as follows:

"ULYSSES: But when the planets 1(In evil mixture) 2(to disorder) 3(wander), 1(What plagues) 2(and what portents), 3(what mutiny), What 1(raging of the sea,) 2(shaking of earth,) 3(Commotion in the winds!) 1(Frights,) 2(changes,) 3(horrors,) 1+2(Divert and crack,) 3+4(rend and deracinate,) 1(The unity) and 2(married calm) 3(of states) 1(Quite from) 2(their fixture!)"

The four "what" are preparing the four verbs later regrouped in two symmetrical pairs and the final binary rhythm in the last line. Four is for Shakespeare the perfection and in this case we have the perfection of evil, disorder and that disorder has to be solved.

In Shakespeare's cosmic metaphysical vision the solution has to come with the total destruction of the entity who caused the disorder, hence Hector and Troy who disturbed the cosmic balance of the world by abducting Helen who was absolutely willing, at least as shown in the play.

Then we could enter details but it would only be detail of the same style and meaning. We are shown the unraveling of the fabric of Troy, step by step into craziness, into cowardice, into death and Shakespeare seems to take pleasure, which means his audience took pleasure, in the spectacle of that unraveling.

We must not forget in 1602 Elizabeth was ready to die and had already arranged the takeover of her throne by the distant cousins from Scotland, the Stuarts. We can of course read the primary crime in the death of Mary Stuart, executed on the order from Elizabeth herself (though it was the result of a rather plotting attitude of Mary Stuart), and the coming of Mary Stuart's own sons on the English throne could only be seen and felt as dangerous for the country. And that prediction was more than fulfilled by history in less than forty tears.

Then when we read the play in that context what Ulysses says is more than right.

"ULYSSES: Then everything includes itself in power, Power into will, will into appetite; And appetite, a universal wolf, So doubly seconded with will and power, Must make perforce a universal prey, And last eat up himself."

We find at first the same turning double ternary structure as before: "power – power- will – will – appetite – appetite" then turned around to build a third ternary structure, hence reaching the diabolical nine with an inversion: "appetite – will – power" to frame a couple "a universal wolf – a universal prey" built on the oxymoron "wolf – prey" and to close on another binary reflective action "eat up himself". We could of course multiply the examples.

This play is in fact rich and deep though it is absolutely neglected in the world since there are very few screen adaptations and it is also rarely played. We must though indicate that this play is the dramatic use of a subject that was included by Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales under the title of Troilus and Criseyde. This poem, and probably play, was the basis of the opera by William Walton in 1954 on a libretto by Christopher Hassall.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID

Admittedly, this is a weak play and so even a faithful adaption would not do well. What do I mean? Shakespeare shows both sides of the conflict, but unlike Homer's Iliad where it is done to humanize (as the focus is on an entire war and the lives lost), showing the Greek side in this play serves little point up until Cressida arrives at the camp. There is a scene set in Agamemnon's tent where the topic is Achilles' pride, despite Achilles being a bit part and being presented in this play not as a demigod (son of Thetis), but a coward who cannot defeat a human in combat, which makes me wonder why this version of Achilles was so valued by the Greeks in the first place. In the Iliad, he tears through the ranks and chases Hector three times around the Trojan walls before killing him in single combat (but I digress). There is a subplot where it is revealed Achilles is in love with one of Priam's daughters and so he will not fight (nothing comes of it -- as a matter of fact the subplot appears to be dropped). One could argue this has to do with the theme of people's capricious nature, and they may be right, but it appears on the surface as things being introduced to then either be forgotten about or finished in an underwhelming manner.

Despite running over 3 hours, the BBC (rightfully) made cuts, such as A4S3 (less than 100 words) and some Thersites' Dialogue. Although I do not like that they left out the first battle between Hector and Achilles where Hector spares his foe -- a very important scene.

This adaption marked the first time I've seen old, balding men play Greek and Trojan heroes. The actors were awesome, and I did not expect someone who looks like Brad Pitt with 8 pack abs to play Achilles, but could the casting agents not find a 6'5 man to play Ajax? Or someone slightly younger to play Ulysses and Hector? And the line that Troilus just got his beard hairs falls flat when the actor sports a full beard and was played by a 29 year old.