I had, in the past, considered going to New York to see the Wooster Group. I made the commitment to drive back home late at night from the Swan Theatre In Stratford on Avon to save me an air fare. I managed to get one of the last remaining tickets for one of the previews. In a co-production with the Royal Shakespeare Company, they have created a production of Shakespeare’s ‘Troilus and Cressida’, having rehearsed separately for a time, and joining together for final and production rehearsals in Stratford. While the Wooster Group actors portray the besieged Trojans in the story, the RSC Actors, under the direction of Mark Ravenhill, portray the besieging Greeks. A clash of performance cultures was, clearly, intended for this production and that clash certainly arrived.

The Wooster Group have developed an international reputation for drama that is structured in radical ways. From the security of their high-collateral warehouse in the Lower East Side of New York, they enjoy huge freedom to experiment and attract actors of surprisingly high profile. They appear all too infrequently in the UK but have a substantial and intermittently hilarious web presence, posting short, daily video excerpts.

Those, like myself, hoping for a finely-tuned, if quirky, storytelling experience were to be disappointed. I hoped that the collision of rationales might unlock deeper currents in the play, but while Elizabeth LeCompte crafted a a most original regime of dramatic articulation, Mark Ravenhill, by inevitable comparison, failed to match this level of innovation, adopting a style which was merely uninhibited, and which could, at it’s best be energetic, but at its worst, cheap.

I spent a complete act in bafflement before I could see the result of the Wooster Group’s rehearsal process. All the Trojan scenes are accompanied by a coarsely-edited video broadcast, stitched together from various film sources. The bulk of the footage seems to come from an Inuit story and it is from this, not from the actors before us, that we soak up the authenticity of the portrayal of the Trojans as being tribally distinct from the Greeks. Aside from reciting their Shakespearian text in a highly artificial accent, the actors follow the film as an orchestra follow a conductor, following the physical gestures of the screen actors. While our initial reaction is that the American actors are deliberately under-playing, we learn that they are relying on deeper and more immediate feelings to be articulated by the mute footage displayed at the four corners of the thrust. It is an engrossing game, coolly allowed to unfold by a committed cast and, amid dislocation, evoking all manner of parallel spiritual dimension. I did eventually tire of the lack of dynamic vocal energy, but at the depths of Cressida’s despair there appears a moment of pure divine synchronicity between screen and stage. Their adopted accent; partly the unruly sing song of Barney Rubble, with the hoarse yodel of Shaggy, and a whiff of West Country Pilgrim Father; may indeed have some academic credibility, and might equally have sprouted from some hilarious rehearsal idea. It does compromise articulation, but the RSC actors fare little better with their unchecked impetus to over-illustrate the text, though Zubin Varla is a conspicuous exception managing to place his words in our ears and his thoughts into our minds, through the whirlwind of camp. 

The technical installation was ambitious, the Woosters employing radio mikes and top video projection, which automatically follow-spotted the cast with an eerie ripple. This wasn’t quite enough to illuminate the scenes, and the necessary fill lighting took away atmosphere. A song sliced apart the strata of components of the culture devised for the Trojans to inhabit. We had Native American chanting, a folk song and a chorus scalpelled out of an indy track. Helen, the Greek behind the Trojan walls, portrayed by in full countertenor voice by the RSC’s Scott Handy, adds to the blend. The RSC’s contribution to the music comes mainly from Dave Price, who also performs with spectacular energy on a sizable percussion rig.

I was keen to discover what kind of audience it was who had bought out all but a few seats with a week to go before performances began. I would estimate that 99% of them were stalwarts of the RSC Kop End, and puzzlement was being expressed by absolutely everyone I wandered past at the interval. At the end (admittedly Troilus and Cressida does not so much end as just stop) there was one thinly-rewarded curtain call and then they were off. To those unacquainted with the play and curious to its nature, this production fails in its duty of articulation. Those with more stomach to see Shakespeare employed as a component of an innovative artistic experience may be intrigued and excited, but, well, it did go on a bit.