7/19/2006

Trojans and Rebels

To improve Shakespeare, just add American Civil War content. Some Canadians are staging Troilus and Cressida as a Civil War costume drama (on a beach!).
... arrogant Trojans find a fine fit in the preening ambitions of the Confederate aristocracy, pragmatic Greeks are perfectly paralleled in the sober seriousness of the Union army, and the differences between the two armies are now so clear that a marvellous new energy emerges.
Will they do the accents? Apparently.
The Greeks are ... believable in their stoic Union behaviour and clear "Northern" enunciation.
It's an interesting perspective, the North as stoic - not my own sense at all.

But as to the theatre, you look at some of these stagings and think, "Just write your own play, will you please?"