Cressida: "the nonsocial, nonpolitical, nonhuman half of the living structure" [Cixous]

Here's a reflection I wrote on the 2nd best play of the term, Troilus and Cressida.  Somehow I failed to post it (I really need to stop doing that).  
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I went to watch Troilus and Cressida last night (Feb. 8th), with a group of friends from college.  It was a student production, playing at the same theatre where I watched The Last Five Years in the fall of 2008. 

And, once again, I left the theatre shaken. 

I had never watched, nor read, Troilus before, and so had no idea what to expect.  I knew it was, on some level, about two lovers in the midst of the Trojan war, but I didn’t know that it was also, much more forcefully, about the dissonance between the heroic world of warrior men, and the women’s realm they took for granted and violated without notice. 

Never having read the text, I’m unsure how much of the theme’s prominence was due to the original and how much to directorial choices, but either way it was a powerful (and sickening) depiction. 

From the beginning, women, clad in silk nightshifts (for the Greeks) and adapted Grecian togas (for the Trojans) set up the space – space that was then vacated of female presence (or, in the few cases that women remain on stage, active female presence).  Initially, I found the costume choices jarring, not least because of the dissonance between the semi-historical Trojan dresses, and the modern military attire of the men.  But as the play wore on, I came to appreciate that dissonance as a symbol of the utter separation of the two worlds.  As Kim (my  flatmate) pointed out during intermission, she disliked the costumes because they made the women vulnerable, and these “were not vulnerable women.”  But I think that was the point.  They make the women vulnerable despite themselves—barefoot in a world of boot-clad men—as the play goes on to graphically demonstrate that they are. 

But where I first truly grew uncomfortable (and began to sense the direction the play must be going) was in the “joyous” scene where Troilus and Cressida finally come together and swear their vows, and where Pandarus declares that if Troilus is true, let all faithful men be named Troilus, but if Cressida is false, let all faithless women be called Cressid.  She cannot be honored for a faithfulness that is expected of her, only dishonored by betrayal. 

And, of course, the injustice of this curse is staggering.  For women are not granted choices in a time of war.  They are treated as property, not beings with agency, yet they are still judged by adherence to ideals they have no choice in upholding (or violating). 

And so it is that Helen is talked about in all male-councils, bargained with as a possession that will increase or decrease male honor, and kept or given away on this basis alone. 

So it is that Cressida is traded to the Greeks, while Helen kept, because giving Helen back (despite general consensus that she is a whore without worth) would lessen Trojan honor, proving that they could not keep what they had stolen.  So Cressida is traded in order to return a captured Trojan (male) and uphold Trojan (male) promises. 

And Pandarus weeps, not for his niece given to the enemy, but for the boy who loves her, for this, he is sure, will destroy him.  It would be better, Pandarus declares, that Cressida had never been born than that this separation pain Troilus. 

And while Hector is welcomed into the Grecian camp as a brother in arms, worthy of honor despite the hundreds of deaths he has caused, Cressida, innocent of shedding a single Grecian’s blood, is met with sexual and physical assault. 

And, of course, Troilus sees her with Diomedes and judges her by standards of strength and choice she does not posses. 

Meanwhile, Andromache's pleas that Hector remain at home are received with the declaration that she is bringing him dishonor, for he has given his word that he will fight that day.  Never mind that Hector’s death, and Troy’s overthrow, will mean the enslavement of his prophetic wife and sister.  No, it is masculine honor at stake, not women’s freedom. 

And Achilles, who has promised his Trojan love that he will not fight, breaks his word to the woman in order to honor his love for his (male) companion, Patroclus. 

And the play ends with the Trojans singing, in the face of Hector’s death and Troy’s doom, of the honor for which they will be remembered.  And the women, weeping, sing with them – despite the knowledge that they have no part in the heroic deeds that will be passed down in memory, and will, instead, outlive their men to die in captivity and enslavement far away from home. 

And it makes me rage, because they simply don’t get it.  The men, with their honor and their male bonds and their realms of action and decision, do not understand the cost.  They break no promises, and are therefore innocent.  And, in their own way, so breathtakingly, fragily, beautiful.

The play itself was well acted, especially by Pandarus, Hector, and Thersites -- the wretched fool -- played by an actress with incredible physical control.  Cressida fidgeted too much, and though I understand the intention behind filling her with nervous energy, the movement was generated by the actress, not the character, and therefore distracted from the imagined reality, rather than adding to it.  Overall, Cressida, as a character, was not portrayed as overly sympathetic (this is not a girl I'd particularly want to know), but then I kind of think that's the point -- she doesn't deserve sympathy because we like her, she deserves it because she's just an ordinary human girl who's been wronged.  And thanks to some pretty impressive directing, the fight scenes, rather than being half-hearted and corny (as I feared they would be) were stylistic and interesting -- feeding the actors' energy and our own.