Things steadily but slowly heading for the better … Curfew rescinded, restaurants reopened for dining outside, people crowding for the European Championship games without masks or safe distance but cinemas still closed – though, as I understand, for lack of films. (People might have found out by now that they can stream everything …😭!) Well, the most important thing is anyway that school started with regular classes some time before Pentecost, and kids could resume some kind of normal life. My sister, who is a music teacher, told me they were all so pale and quiet when she saw them again …😭!)
It feels as if most people I know are vaccinated now. For the unfortunately healthy like me there is still no vaccine – not in the foreseeable future at least. (Which might change tomorrow!) I realize I don’t mind that much because it makes me feel younger. My university has got hold of some doses of Biontech and Johnson&Johnson, though, and they raffled them off! Would you believe it … Of course I applied, but I have never won anything in my life. Well, didn’t I always know that these are CRAZY TIMES …
… and this is where “Troilus and Cressida” comes in. I had been missing reading Shakespeare, but my head was not really screwed on. Now I got it screwed on and made an effort because I had this idea about looking into the historical dimension of reading. When Claudia and I met for Shakespeare’s birthday, we kind of agreed that it would be “Troilus and Cressida” because we both hadn’t read or seen it and meant to read it sometime. I HAD seen it, in fact, the first Shakespeare I saw in London – and by the RSC! – but that was a long time ago. It was the kind of mistake you are likely to make when you are looking for half price tickets. My sister and I ended up at the Barbican with no idea about the play or even who was who. I still don’t understand much when I haven’t read the play, and in this case the actors spoke incredibly fast so that we didn’t understand a word. The only thing I remember was that they played it vigorously – a bunch of males with good legs and lots of muscles in small tunics. I don’t know if my recollection that it was rather a good production was just a result of this buoyancy and favourable exterior. At least it was not bloodless like the newer production by the RSC I watched on DVD. (Unfortunately, excessive casting of women in roles that are clearly meant to be male tends to result in bleeding the play dry. There has to be the right setting for doing this - then it might work like a charm. I rather liked the all-female versions of “Julius Caesar” and “Henry IV, Part One° which are currently on Digital Theatre. But there was a reason for doing this, some kind of real human interest, not just a weird notion of representing the entire population. As I said, I don’t think this SHOULDN’T be done, it just has to be AESTHETICALLY significant. For example, having Cassandra played by a deaf-mute actress who is signing, with an interpreter who is speaking, turned out great.) But I am getting ahead of myself. Good legs and tight tunics – I soon got a bit further than that.
I read the play, expecting a bit of fun because of these memories and having none. But this is often so when I am “just” reading. Just to understand what is going on. I was reading the story, but I didn’t get the point. I had the impression that it was similar for Claudia when we swapped first reactions soon after that. As I have found, the kind of question like: “Yes, it’s the Trojan War, but what is the bloody point?” is often a good place to start …
I dutifully proceeded to watching the old BBC version, and it began to make sense right away. There is nothing that makes me understand faster than seeing that the actors know what they are doing and are having fun. Three need to be mentioned, but it was one of these exceptions within the complete BBC Shakespeare where there is a sense of people doing something meaningful TOGETHER.
I was pleased with the very young Anton Lesser playing Troilus whom I only came to know at an advanced age, but he was already as clever and empathic and precise as he is now, and doesn’t miss anything. This gave me the reassurance of not missing anything important myself. But Troilus as a character isn’t hard to get. He is just the essential young male – in the best and the worst sense. Suzanna Burden as Cressida played vigorously and convincingly, but she failed at making me understand the character. (Maybe it’s just that the essential young female is so much harder to nail???)
Two other actors stood out in the sense that their dedication to their character really enhanced my understanding of the play. Charles Gray who somehow actually achieved to make me feel for Pandarus – maybe just because he shows some humanity in a perversely inhumane environment. (Again overtaking myself, but there is a tell-tale comparison with Achilles whom I already singled out as the character Shakespeare clearly liked least, showing him as a cowardly brute - whereas he is the one you are supposed to feel empathy for in the Iliad; which didn’t really work with me any more than it did with Shakespeare!) There will probably be more about Pandarus … The other character that made an indelible impression was Thersites, played by an actor with the extremely fitting stage name “The Incredible Orlando”. I dare venture that nobody ever played or understood this character better than he. He wasn’t just incredible but singular in the way he expressed both his male and his female side equally strongly without blending them and thereby weakening one or the other. Instead of being reduced to a pansy, or domesticated into a transvestite, he appears empowered by being actually MORE than just male or female. Imagine a crossover of a woman warrior and a supernaturally brainy male – the ultimate homophobe nightmare? But this is really just a contemporary version of Shakespeare’s Thersites (who in the “Iliad” is just a toothless cur whom Ulysses strikes down because he undermines morale): a dangerous aberration that ceaselessly exposes the stupidity, delusions and limitations of his environment because he is outside the loop and monstrously clever. A brilliant example of this potential Shakespeare’s characters have that can never be exhausted. The Incredible Orlando left no doubt that Thersites is so much more than a “clown”. Even though he barks without biting and has no direct impact on what is happening, in my experience the representation of this character had a huge impact on making the play take off in the right direction.
Next I watched the aforementioned production by the RSC which is mostly insignificant and not very entertaining. The only use it had for me was the impression that Amber James somehow nailed Cressida. It looked difficult – as if, besides a good instinct, a lot of self-reflection got into it. Thence probably my impression that the young female is a complex and somewhat contradictory human condition. Another example for the range of these characters when clever actors are dealing with them. Pity that she had to do this in such an uninspired environment.
After that, I had a first email exchange with Claudia. As I understood, we had a similar first reaction to the “chaotic” nature of the play. We had both at some point read the “Iliad” and remembered enough to recognize that this story is clearly the environment where the play is set: culminating in the death of Hector – but why doesn’t Shakespeare make more of that? At the end, nothing seems to matter: neither the Trojan tragedy nor the tragic love story that is just kind of broken off. (Nobody dies for a REASON!) Then there is Pandarus who has the last word, making weird remarks about bees and prostitution. And why on earth should we pity HIM???
Due to my favourable impression of the BBC production, I had already one or two ideas how it might be supposed to make sense. Seeing it WORK so well for the actors, I began to find the mixture of tragedy and farce in this play really interesting. Mostly because it is not what we are used to in Shakespeare. When I saw it played, I had fun and saw the actors having fun, and a lot of it is rather caustic. This is actually close to what I remembered about my reaction to the “Iliad” over ten years ago. The story as such, the tragic death of Patroklos and the love story that is brutally disrupted after their first night, the theme of women as spoils of war and sex-slaves, are all rather grim and appear to be at discord with the farcical tone of the play. What thrilled me when I looked closer was that there is no clear distinction between comic and tragic characters. That’s why I found Pandarus and Thersites so significant and so worthy of being taken seriously. EVERYBODY is, in a sense, a victim of war. Even the “heroes”. My favourite from the “Iliad”, Ulysses, has scarcely a good bone in his body left, let alone Achilles …! Basically, it is this experience I had about the “Iliad” itself. What a gigantic mess, what a bunch of vain, dysfunctional males! But in the “Iliad” they are at least heroes on the battlefield.
My conclusion was that Shakespeare must REALLY have hated war. Some of what he wrote suggests otherwise, especially “Henry IV” and “Henry V”. People wanted heroic action on the stage, of course, but at a closer look there is the suffering and the depravation as well. Lots of it. No wonder that “Troilus and Cressida” makes me feel as if Shakespeare was on MY side of events. I remember that I liked Cromwell in “Wolf Hall” mostly because he is so firmly set against war. There were two factions, it seems, one with an outdated ideal of chivalry and heroism and the other that considered war as a stupid way of making politics: too costly and not worth the misery it causes. My favourite sentence – which gave me a sense of timelessness about the play – became:
“The bitter disposition of the time will have it so.”
It is exactly Angela Merkel’s notion of “alternativlos” (= having no choice). Bullshit! We ALWAYS have a choice. But if you have messed up everything by laziness and stupidity, the choices you finally end up with will be tough ones. I noticed with glee that Shakespeare inserted a chain of events (that is NOT in the “Iliad”!) about how this war came to pass. It wasn’t really Paris falling in love, but the Greeks had already abducted a Trojan woman – who was old and insignificant compared to Helen. Then the Trojans decided to send Paris to seduce Helen and do some real damage. So much for “stupid”. The rape of Helen might have been used (or invented) as an explanation. In Shakespeare’s book there wasn’t even a sufficient reason for this idiotic war in the first place! In the “Iliad” it is a playing field where men prove their worth – or get slaughtered. In “Troilus and Cressida” it’s just a godawful mess.
Soon after that, I met with Claudia for eating out – the first time since last summer! – and for heavenly ice-cream at Café Münchner Freiheit. I don’t remember that much about our conversation, but it must have triggered my resolve to read the “Iliad”. Claudia confirmed that it had to be the source of the play because there was a new translation available that was popular and which Shakespeare must have read. (When I read the “Iliad” there wasn’t any doubt left, as Shakespeare used exactly the same sequence of events, and the characters are quite obviously based on Homer’s characters.) And I learned that the love story is not from antiquity but came from Chaucer’s epic poem “Troilus & Cressida”. Bearing the historic interest in mind, I saw this as a great opportunity of reading the play and its two main sources. When I got home, I ordered the modernized version of Chaucer’s poem on the spot and began to read the “Iliad”.
That turned out to be really hard work. REALLY tedious, but there were these rewarding - even thrilling - moments. Lots of them, in fact. As it did at the time, the first chapter about the conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles completely drew me in … This is what I learned:
(For those that are interested in the slaughter – like myself:)
The Greeks and Trojans fought with chariots – (at least those who had the money to pay for a team of horses which was immensely valuable.) This meant that they fought in pairs: one was the driver, the other wielded the weapons. (An attractive notion: to know that there is always somebody who has your back!) They preferred throwing spears to close fighting. These often didn’t hit their target, but most of the time somebody else got hurt or killed instead. Afterwards they usually jumped back onto their chariot and hit the road – that is, if they didn’t try to strip the body of armour and weapons. Apparently, more died robbing or defending the dead than attacking the enemy. If they absolutely had to, they fought with swords – or occasionally battle axes – but shooting arrows or throwing stones was more popular. (Stone-throws were often fatal!)
My conclusion: It might have been due to their defensive fighting technique that the Trojan War lasted ten(!) years.
(We got into a discussion about this calculation of time. It is complicated, especially as the Trojan War is not a historic fact. If it ever took place, it was in prehistoric times about 1300-1200 B.C. It is therefore immediately obvious that “ten years” is poetic licence. The Romans introduced the lunar-solar calendar some few hundred years before Christ. I didn’t find anything about the Greeks, but It is likely that years in the “Iliad” (written in the 8th or 7th century B.C) were not solar years as we know them. I still uphold that “ten years” is supposed to convey an awfully long time …)
(Gender, LGBT*:)
The ancient Greeks were totally relaxed about homosexuality (- but didn’t we know that?)
Women were material assets with a complex scale of values (intelligence, weaving skills, good disposition and beauty – supposedly in this order. Doesn’t sound so bad, but in this case I am skeptical about the world having changed so much. I suppose the pivotal factor has always been cup size.)
As a rule, they were worth less than twelve cows. Much less if they had already been used.
In case of doubt, the woman is to blame.
The death of women is not always a problem, sometimes it is part of the solution.
(Men are eejits?)
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