I'll bet there's not a bottle of fake tan to be had in the entire
Lothian region for love nor money. The Trojan warriors in Peter Stein's
Shakespeare production are clad only in loincloths, armoured helms and
an implausible bronze sheen. The Greeks have a contrasting pallor,
probably likewise cosmetic rather than just the effect of stage
lighting and proximity, as if they have spent years of getting sand
kicked in their faces.
The first night of this flagship production in the theatre strand of
the Edinburgh International Festival was aborted at the interval on
Monday evening when the huge moveable rampart at the back of the stage
turned out to be a huge stationary rampart. It is not essential to the
drama, but nevertheless it and the armies' skin tones are among the few
noteworthy aspects of the show.
The play's genre has long been problematic: did Shakespeare consider it
a comedy, a history or a tragedy? Stein does nothing to illuminate the
matter, opting instead for an excessively straightforward reading with
the kind of over-emphatic vocal delivery he can resort to when
directing in English. As the young lovers, Henry Pettigrew and Annabel
Scholey at times sound downright sing-song in their rhapsodies of
romantic suspense. The more experienced actors (including Ian Hogg as
Agamemnon, Rachel Pickup as Helen and Jeffry Wickham as Priam) are
sometimes little better. Only David Yelland as the wily Ulysses gives a
performance which is big enough to fill the King's Theatre without
flattening itself into near-caricature. Paul Jesson's Pandarus is
transparent in his enterprise of pimping Troilus and Cressida to each
other; Ian Hughes' Thersites has no discernible motive for his
misanthropic railings, coming across as distracted and febrile.
Stein has little time for nuance or complexity in the script: the
moment Cressida sets eyes on her Greek captor Diomedes, it is apparent
that Troilus' time has come and gone, which is rather overdoing her
status as a byword for female infidelity. Even Malcolm Ranson's
normally reliable fight direction is principally of the "bash your
sword against his shield, then pause" type. The director has announced
that this is to be his final Edinburgh; he has not gone out on a high
note.
Written for the Financial Times.
Copyright © Ian Shuttleworth; all rights reserved.
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