“Like or find fault, do as your pleasures are,
Now good or bad, ’tis but the chance of War!”

Workshop 1 – 8th February

First read through and discussions.

Topics discussed included:

Act 4.5
Farce? Comedy? Tragedy?
Troilus – hero or twunt?
Pandarus and Ulysses – the go-betweens
Incomplete? Concord or discord?
Act 5
Ajax
Act 5.2 – false Cressid?
Paris and Menelaus
Family against Empire
If not “Troilus and Cressida” then what?
To cut or not to cut
Bitterness, disillusionment and disease
Aeneus and Diomedes
Missing soliloquy? Cressida’s letter
Doubling
Seven deadly sins
Bend a gender
The other women
Heroic?
Thersites

“I am a bastard too, I love bastards. I am bastard begot, bastard instructed, bastard in mind, bastard in valour, in every thing illegitimate. One bear will not bite another, and wherefore should one bastard? Take heed, the quarrel’s most ominous to us. If the son of a whore fight for a whore, he tempts judgement. Farewell, bastard.”

Workshop 2 – 22nd February

Masterclass: TEXT AND CONTEXT with Liza Graham

“Troilus and Cressida” plunges actors and audience into the Trojan War with almost no preparation, explanation or exposition.  In this masterclass, we will cover Shakespeare’s use of the play’s ancient Greek and medieval British sources, and explore how to guide a modern audience through the labyrinth of classical references.

“Till then I’ll sweat and seek about for eases,
And at that time bequeath you my dieases.”