Troilus and Cressida

Don’t get me wrong. Despite what you’re about to read in the next few paragraphs, I liked this production. It was fun seeing the Greek warriors in American G.I. garb and the Trojans decked out as Iraqi soldiers. And I couldn’t help but thrill to the thundering sounds of shock and awe that only today’s modern armies can muster; compared with that, the sound of clashing steel doesn’t begin to cut it.

And if director Rob Melrose set his “Troilus and Cressida” in Baghdad during the U.S. invasion to make the point of relevance, I do get his point: Shakespeare’s cynical take on war is, sadly, never out of date.

But this finely-crafted play, brimming with bold, broad-stroke characters and caricatured heroes of history, compelling confrontations, audacious comedy and delightful suggestions of connubial bliss had no need for such a setting shift, particularly one that presented few political or practical parallels. In fact, at times I found it distracting and even jarring to hear warriors wielding M-16s sticking to the scriptural references to swords and swordplay. And though I couldn’t help smiling when the incidental music featured Tom Jones singing “It’s Not Unusual,” I couldn’t see the sense.

Those distractions do a disservice to an otherwise well-paced and solid piece of work, dubbed “Shakespeare’s epic” by Melrose, and scaled well to the intimate setting of the New Theatre.

The story, which appears to be borrowed from sources including Homer’s “Iliad” and Chaucer’s “Troilus and Criseyde,” takes place in the seventh year of the decade-long conflict sparked by the Trojan Paris’ theft of Helen, wife to the Greek’s Spartan King Menelaus. By now, the war is cool if not cold and the soldiers are bored. That’s a point made well and humorously, though perhaps incessantly. Beginning even before the curtain rises, the Greek G.I.s occupy their time driving golf balls into the desert (a diversion forever associated with“M*A*S*H.)” scuffling, playing craps and, in the case of Achilles and his boyfriend Patroclus, simply lounging around. You might imagine them in the tent watching soap operas.

There does seem to be a bit more fun on the Trojan side of the wall, where Troilus, a son of King Priam, played with boyish delight by Raffi Barsoumian, feverishly courts the beautiful and hard-to-get Cressida, portrayed with intelligence and wit by Tala Ashe. Their interplay was compelling and credible.

Meanwhile, seemingly as surrogates for the stalemated city-states, Troy’s valiant Hector, another of the King’s sons challenges the opposing army’s best to a one-on-one affair. The Greek’s best, Achilles, at first defers, at first, to his fellow commander Ajax.

Though the context here may be historical, the text focuses far more on the deeply personal and on the quirky personalities of our multiple heroes. And there is, perhaps surprisingly, much fun to be had.

In fact, while this play could hardly be characterized as comedy—the violence precludes that—the clowns have the juiciest roles. As Cressida’s uncle, obsessed with playing cupid and pairing her off with Troilus—for a reason that never is made clear—Barzin Akhavan is as brilliant as he is effectively creepy.

The true clown role here is that of Thersites, identified in the dramatis personae as “a deformed and scurrilous Grecian.” Michael Elich’s explosive whirling dervish of performance is as broadly comedic as it is nuanced. I’d see it again just for him.

“Troilous and Cressida” plays through Nov. 4.

I’d see it again just for him.