Shakespeare's epic Trojan play about love, war and politics. Elizabeth LeCompte and Mark Ravenhill co-direct an Anglo-American company in a groundbreaking, multi-media collaboration between The Wooster Group and the RSC, commissioned for the World Shakespeare Festival.
In London 24 August
Reviews
The Daily Telegraph
Jane Shilling
“Among the “problems” of the play is the fact that it offers no heroes, no restoration of order, no comfort. Hector’s chivalry is rewarded with an ignominious end. Cressida is untrue, Troilus betrayed. Love does not triumph, nor does courage. “War and lechery confound all,” as Thersites observes. LeCompte and Ravenhill’s elegantly disturbing production builds a powerful sense of beleaguered humanity, with strong performances from Marin Ireland as a sly Cressida, and Joe Dixon as a pouting Achilles. But the direction becomes mannered as the drama approaches its unresolved crisis; there is a sense of reaching for effect, and an accompanying loss of momentum.”
09/08/2012
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The Stage
Heather Neill
“The groundwork for this co-production - part of the World Shakespeare Festival 2012 - famously involved the experimental Wooster group rehearsing separately from the RSC cast. The American-Trojans did not meet the British-Greeks for some weeks during which the New Yorkers developed aspects of Native American society and the Brits became modern army chaps in faded camouflage. The result is, unfortunately, a mess. The confusion of existence is there all right, but not much which is recognisable as a realistic exploration of human relationships.”
09/08/2012
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The Independent on Sunday
Kate Bassett
“The stylistic dichotomy highlights different strengths and weaknesses. LeCompte's aesthetic is strikingly weird and novel in the Swan. The flat-toned delivery also, arguably, reflects how characters prove insincere or are ultimately denied tragic depth in this problem play. The downside is that LeCompte offers no psychological insights en route. Her staging is technically layered – with the film footage in tandem – but that's often merely distracting. Conversely, Ravenhill is thin on directorial concepts. His team's modern army uniforms don't gel with the Native American set-up, and his programme note about exciting inconsistencies is unpersuasive.”
12/08/2012
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The Observer
Susannah Clapp
“In the loud jabber of visual and verbal distractions, other Troilus subjects are vanquished: this is the Shakespeare play that above all others meditates on the nature of time. You would not know that here, as things jump up and down in a constant present. Coalitions are often not a good idea.”
12/08/2012
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The Daily Express
Neil Norman
“Scott – so terrific in the recent Gatz – is ridiculous as Troilus, delivering his lines in the cracked whine of American stand-up Emo. ”
10/08/2012
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The Financial Times
Alexander Gilmour
“The text undermines the ideals of soldiering and courtly love, as does this production. Ajax, the strongest of the Greeks, is presented as a metal-head in a strong-man suit; high romance is reduced to its sexual parts; and pitched battles are fought with sporting paraphernalia – a hurling stick and a cricket bat, among others. The results are cartoon-camp, yet elements are successful: Joe Dixon’s Achilles – “great Thetis’s son” – prances in a white sarong, vain, grasping, cruel, yet also pitiable; Thersites is a festering transvestite masquerading as an amputee; and Helen, the epitome of female beauty, is played by a man in a frizzy auburn wig.”
10/08/2012
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The Guardian
Michael Billington
“ In case we miss the point about Achilles's sexual ambivalence, Joe Dixon turns up for a pre-battle feast in a scarlet evening gown. Zubin Varla also delivers Thersites's running commentary on wars and lechery as a wheelchair-using transvestite. And Danny Webb, having played Agamemnon as a cautious military brolly-clutcher, doubles as Diomedes, whom he inexplicably turns into Crocodile Dundee. Only Scott Handy as a scholarly Ulysses delivers the verse with a kind of witty intelligence that we used to take for granted at the RSC.”
09/08/2012
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The Times
Sam Marlowe
“Humming with homoeroticism, high camp and high concept, this is an oddball mongrel production, defiantly difficult to like. ”
10/08/2012
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