The Playgoer: Wooster Group & Royal Shakespare Company Tag-Team "Troilus"

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Friday, November 18, 2011

Wooster Group & Royal Shakespare Company Tag-Team "Troilus"

These seeming transatlantic opposites are collaborating on what promises to be the weirdest Troilus yet:

The Wooster Group is teaming up with the Royal Shakespeare Company on a production of Troilus & Cressida, Shakespeare's tale of the Trojan War, to premiere at the London 2012 Festival during the Olympics.

We know it sounds nuts, but the RSC and their associate director Rupert Goold approached us about this unlikely collaboration. We found it irresistible....

The gameplan is this: The RSC will play the Greeks. The Wooster Group will play the Trojans. And just as the play is structures as a series of alternating scenes between the two camps, our rehearsals will be similarly divided. The Wooster Group will build the Trojan world at the Performing Garage and the RSC will build the Greek wold in the UK. We will meet for five weeks of rehearsal together before the opening in Stratford-upon-Avon in August 2012, followed by performances in London and New York.

From the Group's own fundraising appeal. (Their NYC rehearsals won't be funded by RSC, so they're asking for donations here.)

Unfair to judge from early, early rehearsals, but here's a glimpse of their process:


TROILUS & CRESSIDA - movement rehearsal [07.12.11] from The Wooster Group on Vimeo.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Even if it's a disaster chances are it'll be an interesting one. Glad to see this tricky play being tackled at all. Along with Measure for Measure and Timon a play made for these times.