Troilus And Cressida seldom proves satisfying, only partly due to its notorious inconsistencies. Its date of composition is uncertain, as is its classification: comedy? History? Tragedy? Even the notion that Shakespeare was deliberately mixing it up (as propounded, for instance, by the late director John Barton, whose rehearsal notes from the 1960s and ’70s have been used by Gregory Doran in preparing this version) can seem like rather desperate apologism.

One thing that is certain is that the title characters, like that of The Merchant Of Venice (Antonio, not Shylock), are not the principal subject of the play. The two young Trojans’ wooing with the mediation of Pandarus, then Troilus’ disillusionment as Cressida is enrolled in a prisoner exchange and swiftly falls for her Greek guard, provide romance, bawdy comedy and tragedy, but all in fairly perfunctory measure, in the gaps between the main Trojan War narrative. In this, Greeks and Trojans each bicker amongst themselves more than they fight with each other; the climactic slaying of Hector is significant less as a turning point in the war than for how and why it happened, as the culmination of a tangle of factional struggles and character defects.

The problem with Doran’s production is that it’s the secondary lovers’ strand that makes more sense. I mean this not in terms of the writing but of the delivery. Gavin Fowler and Amber James sound as if they are inhabiting their emotions and express both feelings and verbal sense naturally (apart from James’ overwrought howl as Cressida confronts her own perfidy). In contrast, the politicking sounds largely as if the actors have had the meaning explained to them and are passing it on to us rather than animating it themselves, and the martial sequences are simply turned up to 11.

Most surprising and disappointing is the normally first-rate Adjoa Andoh as the wily Ulysses (one of several cross-cast roles). Ulysses is often the most satisfying role, but Andoh plays him/her from moment to moment, line to line, with no overall personality emerging. Thersites, one of the great sullen bastards of English drama, is also sold short. The venerable Sheila Reid, more petite than ever amongst all these leather-clad hunks, seems like the runt of the litter, and plays the character in her native Glaswegian accent more as a licensed fool than an embittered malcontent, not so much Frankie Boyle as Jimmy Krankie. The laurels go, perhaps unsurprisingly, to Oliver Ford Davies as Pandarus, diplomatically dithering, a long silver ponytail hanging behind his bald head and making him resemble an elderly Krautrocker.

The staging mixes period military costume with motorbikes, and Evelyn Glennie’s percussive score is all metallic clatter (Einstürzende Troybauten, you might say). The presence of the profoundly deaf Glennie may also have indirectly influenced the portrayal of the mad prophetess Cassandra (Charlotte Arrowsmith) as communicating wordlessly through shrieks, sign language and interpreters. It all adds up to... well, no, it doesn’t: it piles up, one chunk on top of another, like a Jenga tower. And we know what’s inevitable about Jenga.

Written for the Financial Times.