Royal Shakespeare Company artistic director Gregory Doran and designer Niki Turner will create a “sardonic futuristic vision of a world resounding to the rhythm of battle” for Troilus and Cressida in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford.
It will be the first time the company has performed the play since 2006 when it was presented as part of the Complete Works Festival.
Troilus and Cressida swear they will always be true to each other. But in the seventh year of the siege of Troy their innocence is tested and exposed to the savage corrupting influence of war, with tragic consequences.
Gavin Fowler will play Troilus. He was last at the RSC in Oscar Wilde’s Salome in the Swan Theatre in 2017. His other work includes Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Michael Grandage Company at the Noël Coward Theatre in 2013.
Amber James is Cressida. She played Charmain in Antony and Cleopatra for the RSC in 2017 and earlier in 2018 she was Stella in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, a Theatr Clwyd, Nuffield Southampton and English Touring Theatre co-production.
Doran said, “I’m really interested to be exploring the re-gendering of roles in this testosterone-fuelled play to create a 50-50 gender-balanced cast. We’ve pioneered the re-gendering of roles at the RSC for many years but this is the first time in the history of the company that we’ve made a conscious decision to do so for the entire play.
“The re-gendering is completely balanced and has been carefully achieved so that the women have exactly the same stage time and line count as the men.”
The cast also incudes Nicole Agada (Paris’s servant), Adjoa Andoh (Ulysses), Andy Apollo (Achilles), Charlotte Arrowsmith (Cassandra), Daisy Badger (Helen), Suzanne Bertish (Agamemnon), Daniel Burke (Diomed), James Cooney (Patroclus), Oliver Ford Davies (Pandarus), Helen Grady (Calchas), Amanda Harris (Aeneas), Daniel Hawksford (Hector), Andrew Langtree (Menelaus), Geoffrey Lumb (Paris), Esther McAuley (Polyxena), Theo Ogundipe (Ajax), Leigh Quinn (Alexandra), Sheila Reid (Thersites), Mikhail Sen (Helenus), Ewart James Walters (King Priam) and Gabby Wong (Andromache / Antenor).
Virtuoso percussionist Evelyn Glennie will be part of the creative team along with lighting designer Matt Daw, co-composer / sound designer Dave Price, movement director Siân Williams and fight director Terry King.
Troilus and Cressida will run in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre from Friday 12 October until Saturday 17 November. Press night will be Thursday 18 October. The play will be broadcast live to cinemas on Wednesday 14 November.