Summary 
Strongly anti-war themed tragedy is a cleverly and clearly directed battle epic with occasional elements of humor and doomed romance. A hauntingly memorable image - the war dead approaching the audience while moving beneath a layer of sheer white fabric - defines a sprawling and sometimes confusing series of intertwined stories. A pair of beautiful performers in the central romance, plus a couple of comical roles, but for the most part a steadfast historical epic about an unnecessary and bloody war.
Design
Directed by Barbara Gaines. Costumes by Nan Cibula-Jenkins. Set by Michael Philippi. Lights by Robert Wierzel. Sound by Lindsay Jones. Original music by George Stiles.
Cast
Bruce A. Young (Achilles), Stephen Ouimette (Pandarus), Chaon Cross (Cressida), Lacy Coil (Cassandra), Greg Vinkler (Ulysses), Ross Lehman (Thersites), Kevin O'Donnell (Troilus), Mark L. Montgomery (Hector), Scott Jaeck (Agamemnon), John Timothy McFarland (Ajax), Lea Coco (Paris), James Harms (Nestor), Dan Kenney (Aeneas), William Dick (Alexander/Menelaus/Calchas), Michael Huftile (Patroclus), Matthew Lon Walker (Priam), Casey Campbell (Helenus), Andrew Rothenberg (Diomedes), Mary Kay Cook (Helen), Rian Jarrell (Bastard).
Analysis
Barbara Gaines' sprawling Troilus and Cressida at Chicago Shakespeare Theater is a painstakingly detailed depiction of the Trojan war, deftly balancing the sometimes unwieldy narrative of warfare, tragedy, comedy and romance. Gaines cleverly deploys a large cast of thirty-two performers across the confusing jigsaw puzzle of story, admirably fashioning an anti-war statement in condemning the waging of war under false pretenses. Her minimally set, crowded stage teems with activity, from doomed romance to frenzied combat sequences, a triumph of stage management in its clearly drawn epic scale. Gaines even creates a nightmarishly original stage image - reprised later in the production - with the battlefield dead re-appearing upstage to move slowly in ghostly fashion downstage toward the audience, their physical attributes blurred and movement constricted by a thin layer of nearly transparent filmy white chiffon over them. The image, accompanied by a plaintive piano melody, is backlit in glaring white, a haunting and eerie return of battlefield spirits that feels like both a haunting and an indictment. In Gaines' brilliant stage picture, the dead-eyed soldiers represent the silent glare of the countless soldiers wasted and sacrificed for selfish and/or ill-proven reasons.
Gaines depicts the often chaotic story elements and thinly-drawn characters with admirable clarity, depicting the defending Trojans in bright shades of white - King Priam and his royal leadership - along with the compelling Chaon Cross as a lithe and muscular Cressida in flowing blonde hair and a clinging and revealing off-white gown. In contrast, the besieging Greeks sport grubby earthen attire and long hair and beards, squabbling amongst themselves as Agamemnon attempts to rally them. A ragged Ulysses, appearing aged and embittered, moves to incite the sluggish Achilles by proclaiming Ajax the new Greek hero and role model, but Bruce A. Young's Achilles, a looming and muscular black man in flowing cornrows and layers of studded black leather, seems enervated and disinterested, content to cuddle his young male warrior-lover, Patroclus. The frequent fight scenes are expertly choreographed, quickly paced with plenty of movement and always an array of combatants onstage, amid sweaty flexing, grunting and groaning along with pained poses and expressions. The seven years of rather ludicrous war has resulted in an emotionless continuation of slaughter, the combatants unaware of and unconcerned with the reasons behind the warfare.
Gaines intercuts the long stretches of action sequences with odd moments of crass humor - from Pandarus and Thersites, as if from a different text altogether - and star-cross'd romance, with Cross and Kevin O'Donnell as Troilus the beauteous couple trampled beneath a war much like Romeo and Juliet matured and on a broader scale. Gaines' anti-war themes extend to society itself, especially the petulant and patriarchal traditions that allow a useless war to savagely continue. Cross's Cressida, physically resembling an action-hero warrior herself, but with the grace and beauty of a romantic leading lady, exceptionally presents a defiant and angry lover in the first act, then a crushed but resilient spirit in the second act. O'Donnell's handsome and dashing Troilus is nearly her equal, but is more effective as the lovesick young man and grief-stricken lover of the first act than as the later avenging soldier and solemn hero. Thersites and Pandarus serve as comic relief, necessary in a gory three hour battle epic with threadbare moments of to-be-crushed romance, but Thersites plays as more of a shrilly scenery-chewing comedy act, while Stephen Ouimette - a seasoned Stratford Festival of Canada veteran making his Chicago Shakespeare Theater debut - plays a complex and insightful Pandarus, lending to the tragedy and providing bookended observations in a craggy-voiced prologue then a concluding epilogue.