| . | 12/01/2009
The Age of Iron
By: Victor Gluck
Xanthe Elbrick, Luis Moreno, Graham Winton, Elliot Villar, Bill Christ, Craig Baldwin and Finn Wittrock
(Photo credit: T. Charles Erickson)
Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida has always been problematic. A dark comedy about love and war, it has defied classification for many years, and is now referred to as a satiric tragicomedy. Beginning seven years into the Trojan War, it doesn’t get very far in telling the story of either the war or its star-crossed lovers, and has a very inconclusive, unsatisfactory ending. For almost two hundred years after its premiere it wasn’t performed in favor of John Dryden’s retelling of the tale.
Brian Kulick, artistic director of the Classic Stage Company, has found a new way to approach Shakespeare’s play: by combining it with his younger contemporary Thomas Heywood’s The Iron Age, which fills in the missing parts of the mythology and creates a more complete retelling of the Trojan War. The result both adapted and directed by Kulick is The Age of Iron, an epic retelling of the ten year Trojan War, which produces its own new problems. In our own time of protracted wars, the play has much to tell us about the effects of war of on a society.
The Age of Iron is bookended by scenes from Heywood, in addition to his banquet scene which ends Act I. Both the prologue spoken by Homer, author of The Iliad, another retelling of the Trojan War, and the epilogue spoken by Ulysses, the last surviving Greek general, are also by Heywood. The character of Shakespeare’s Pandarus, the go-between for the young Trojan lovers Troilus and Cressida, has been eliminated.
The new play begins with Prince Paris’ visit to King Menelaus’ Sparta and his abduction of Queen Helen which initiates the war at Troy. It picks up with Shakespeare’s account of the love of the Trojan Prince Troilus for Cressida whose father, the priest Calchas, has defected to the Greeks. Although they swear eternal love, when Calchas demands Cressida’s return to him, Troilus finds out how faithful undying love actually is.
It is seven years into the Trojan War and a stalemate exists between the two sides fighting on the beach before the city of Troy. Although there is a rivalry between the Greek Achilles and the Trojan Prince Hector, Achilles has given a promise not to fight. When Achilles’ companion Patrolcus is killed in battle, Achilles changes his mind and takes a vow to kill Hector. Although Hector’s wife Andromache and his father King Priam beg him not to fight that day, he goes to his doom. The Age of Iron continues with Heywood’s version of what happens after Troilus’ death in battle, the fall of Troy, and the reunion of Helen and Menelaus. Throughout the play the scurrilous, deformed Greek officer Thersites comments on the action as well as insults all of his betters, a version of the more familiar Shakespearean royal fool.
Heywood’s dialogue lacks Shakespeare’s poetry and psychology. Instead it has verbal dexterity and his scenes have a great deal of theatricality. Particular examples are Paris’ seduction of Helen, the killing of Achilles by archery and Ulysses and Ajax’s debate for the armor of Achilles. While Heywood’s lines are sometimes in rhyme, Shakespeare remains consistent to blank verse.
Kulick’s production takes place in a huge sand box which suggests both the beach before Troy as well as the fact that war is the ultimate game of boys and their toys. Set designer Mark Wendland has used a red tent for the scenes of wooing in Sparta, a white tent for the initial scenes with the Greeks, and then simply the black walls of the theater for the tragedy that ultimately occurs.
The costumes by Oana Botez-Ban create a problem of their own. All of the men are dressed in black which sometimes makes it difficult to distinguish characters, particularly in crowd scenes. Although the actors have used hair styles and facial hair to differentiate themselves, some are too similar appearance. While Troilus has his hair parted in the middle and is clean shaven, and Agamemnon has a full beard and head of hair, several of the taller actors have shaven heads and are at times difficult to distinguish.
A clever touch is that Patroclus, Achilles’ close friend is played by a woman. Although she is dressed as a man, this adds an additional touch of ambiguity to their relationship. Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles depicted by Heywood, is played by the same actor who plays Achilles which makes the family resemblance startlingly clear.
Finn Wittrock makes an idealistic, impassioned Troilus, while Dylan Moore’s Cressida is at first callow and then becomes an astute player in the game of love. Bill Christ’s big, dim-witted Ajax makes an interesting contrast with the wily, verbally adept Ulysses of Steven Skybell. Dion Mucciacito, built like a boxer in training, gives an interesting take on Achilles as an ironic warrior with a wry sense of humor, while Elliot Villar makes Prince Hector a suitably refined and sophisticated leader of the Trojan Army. Mark H. Dold’s Diomedes, with his well-manicured goatee, is an elegant courtier and suitor of Cressida.
Tina Benko is a beautiful, flirtatious Helen but does not suggest much inner life. Xanthe Elbrick is quite different first as Patrocles and later as Hector’s wife Andromache. Steven Rattazzi gives a juicy performance as the wicked tongued and pragmatic Thersites who often narrates or comments on the action. Luis Moreno’s Menelaus, Craig Baldwin’s Paris, Graham Winton’s Agamemnon, and Michael Potts’ King Priam do not have enough to do individually to make much of an impression. The strange original music by Christian Frederickson sounds like it is being played on a sitar, and gives the play an exotic texture.
Brian Kulick’s ambitious, two and a half hour The Age of Iron is always riveting even when it is not immediately obvious who is who. It might have been easier to follow if the Greeks and Trojans wore different costumes. On the other hand, it makes the statement that in war all men are interchangeable. The text with its combination of Shakespeare and Heywood delivers the message that both love and war are equally games but that not all play by the rules. As a play for our time, The Age of Iron also demonstrates the toll on a civilization of a war without end, as seems to be true in our own generation.
The Age of Iron (through December 6)
Classic Stage Company, 126 E. 13th Street, in Manhattan
For tickets, call 212 352-3101 or http://www.classicstage.org
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