TROILUS & CRESSIDA (The Show Must Go Online)***

By Dave

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5xBbLTri5A

Available until: Indefinitely

I should have known really. I’ve been offering to help the younger generation with the blog for a couple of weeks now but they always told me I was too old. Then suddenly they change their mind and I walk right into it.

It’s not so much that they want a few words of wisdom from someone who is (as they’ve pointed out more than once) much older than them. (Not too sure about the ‘much’ part, but there’s teens for you.)

It’s more that they’ve hit one of Shakespeare’s problem plays and none of them feel confident about reviewing it!

I really do understand that. It’s an awkward play. It’s a horrible play. It’s cynical and cruel. There are a lot of plays where terrible things happen, including lots of Shakespeare’s plays, but there’s usually someone to root for, even if you know it’s all going to go wrong. Macbeth and Othello do awful things and everything just gets worse and worse for Hamlet, but these plays are compelling and you want to keep watching them. Troilus & Cressida… not so much.

Troilus & Cressida seems to be saying that fighting is good, refusing to fight is bad, and women are objects which can be stolen or passed around by the men whenever they feel like it. I like to tell myself that, although there is still a lot of fighting in this world, we might be moving towards the stage where we can move beyond the need to fight and have a civilised conversation instead – and obviously women’s role in most societies has changed a lot, and quite rightly. The way the women are treated in this play is disgusting. Helen was kidnapped and they consider handing her back without at any point considering her feelings, only their own convenience. Cressida is used in a swap deal; just handed over to the enemy.

It probably is an accurate depiction of the kind of thing that happened (and, sadly, still happens) and we shouldn't forget these horrible things that are part of our past but which also teach us so much. But it’s difficult to enjoy a play when you’re really not supporting either side and where there are some truly horrific scenes which I doubt many people could watch without feeling deeply uncomfortable.

None of these criticisms is directed at The Show Must Go Online. I’ve watched most of their plays and they’re brilliant. Getting a Shakespeare play together in a week, arranging rehearsals between people in different continents and then performing it live on Zoom, that’s no mean feat, but they do it every week and they do a great job. The problem is more what Shakespeare was thinking (or drinking) when he wrote Troilus & Cressida.

So let’s put the plot aside and focus on the performances.

Flinn McManus is a very attractive Troilus. Relaxed and comfortable and I could almost imagine meeting him down the pub. Not that I recommend speaking Shakespearean English down the pub. Or not till everyone else is very drunk. Lebogang Fisher is an ardent, passionate Cressida. A bit stroppy, but I guess stroppy teens have been around for hundreds of years and I admire her spirit, particularly considering the horrific society she lives in.

Austin Tichenor (Pandarus) and Danielle Farrow (Agamemnon) speak Shakespeare beautifully and are wonderful to watch when they’re not speaking too. They can change their facial expressions just infinitesimally and it and it tells you so much about what their characters are thinking. Austin also gave the play some welcome humour, even if it did seem out of place. I’ve seen Danielle in a few plays and she is a really elegant lady – until you ask her to play Agamemnon, at which point she’s not a lady and she’s not elegant. She’s an incredible actress. She also got to use what now seems to be the official Shakespearean term for “You’re on mute” and delivered the line with wonderful disparagement. Nobody will dare accidentally mute themselves again.

Dana Demsko plays Aeneas and she doesn’t look or sound like a man but the energy in her performance feels like a masculine energy. I’ll probably get my wrists slapped for being sexist now but the point I’m making is that I don’t have a problem with someone who looks and sounds like Dana behaving like Aeneas. I just think ‘Okay, so Aeneas has long curly hair. Good for him, it looks great.’

But then again there is something to be said for someone who is happy to dress up to the extent that they’ll black their teeth out and smear… well, I hope it’s ketchup on their face. Zoe Land does this and her Thersites is hilarious. She made me smile in every scene she was in (quite an achievement in this play) and makes Shakespeare sound so natural. If she spoke Shakespearean English in the pub, she might even get away with it. Maya Cohen’s rather creepy Cassandra and Fleur de Wit’s almost likeable Hector were also great.

I also have to approve of Shakespeare’s gay couple. Sven Maertens and Olaf Raymond Eide make Achilles and Patroclus into a great couple and what happens to them in Act 5 is a rare moment of emotion in a Shakespeare play I really struggle with.

The sword-fighting is also excellent – it’s convincing, but it doesn’t look too horrible. There’s also some technical dexterity in removing actors from the screen as their stunt doubles appear to fight, and then in switching them back again. So there are definitely things to enjoy in this performance – it just doesn’t include the plot.