John Bull versus Hiawatha

Written soon after Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida is by a long chalk Shakespeare’s most unpleasant play. With a pox-ridden Pandarus and the filthy-minded nihilist Thersites as our guides to one of the least savoury episodes in the Trojan war, Shakespeare probes the cesspit of human nature. It’s an exploration of a farthest frontier from which Shakespeare might never have returned, only to do so magnificently in the works of his final period. To grapple with this play is to increase one’s awestruck understanding of Iago’s dedication to evil and the sagacity of the Fool in Lear.

Stratford’s outrageous new co-production is a madcap transatlantic gamble. An RSC ensemble directed by Mark Ravenhill play the Greeks, while New York’s experimental Wooster Group under Elizabeth LeCompte play the Trojans. The Woosters, no relations it would seem of Bertie and named after the street where they live in Lower Manhattan, do the Trojans as Indians wielding lacrosse sticks — we’re in Hiawatha territory with a wigwam, campfire and a disastrous long black wig for the restless, tomahawk-faced Troilus (Scott Shepherd).