[In the following review of Troilus and Cressida directed by Sir Peter Hall at the American Place Theatre in New York, Sommers finds the production “ambivalent” and praises only a few individual performances.]

The great warrior Achilles is dismissed as “a fusty nut with no kernel” by someone in Troilus and Cressida, and if it's badly produced, Shakespeare's strange episode from the Trojan Wars could easily be described in like terms.

A corrosively cynical behind-the-scenes look at legendary heroes, Troilus and Cressida is one of Shakespeare's most experimental and least-performed works. Dwelling upon inconstancy in both love and war, the drama itself is marked by inconsistent characters and unsettling shifts in tone. A whirling weathervane of a play that screams for bold direction to point it in one way or another, Troilus and Cressida receives a regrettably ambivalent staging by Sir Peter Hall. Opening last Sunday at American Place Theatre, Theatre for a New Audience's revival may be clearly spoken by its actors but needs far better expression as drama.

The story unfolds during a stalemate in the eighth year of the Greek siege of Troy. The Greek leaders squabble while the Trojans, with some misgivings, hold on to Helen. A Trojan prince, Troilus, is madly in love with Cressida, whom he eventually beds, abetted by her uncle Pandarus. Yet when Cressida is traded to the Greeks for a Trojan prisoner, she rapidly takes up with another man. Disillusionment and betrayal ultimately sour both factions in the greater conflict.

Hall positions the play on a circle of sand that's sometimes studded with burnt corpses. It's unfortunate that the sand upon which they emote underlines the surfer dude vagueness of Joey Kern's bland Troilus and Tricia Paoluccio's petulant, Valley Girl-ish Cressida.

Several actors are better than sufficient: Idris Elba's sullen, apparently stoned Achilles, Nicholas Kepros' wise Nestor, Lorenzo Pisoni's sensual Paris, Philip Goodwin's cool, conniving Ulysses.

Eyes gleaming, lips frothing with bile, Andrew Weems rages around as the scuzzy Greek Thersites, who insults all and sundry. His may be an excessive portrait, but at least it's energetic.

The remainder of the ensemble trudges through the text, carefully enunciating the words but mostly unable to bring their characters into vivid existence. Draped in scarves and voluminous robes, looking like Paul Bowles on his last legs, Tony Church disappointingly fails to mine any chattering humor from the rich role of Pandarus.

For all of its demands on players and viewers alike, Troilus and Cressida remains one of Shakespeare's most cinematic plays as it changes focus from close-ups of the lovers to grander scenes at court or strategic sessions in the Greek camp. It's a thoughtful study of the political and personal realities that corrupt the most glorious of intentions and holds much relevance for contemporary audiences.

So it's a crime that this rarely produced yet potentially fascinating work receives such a flat, plodding production from Hall. Old hands at Shakespeare can simply shrug it off as a wasted 3-1/2 hours, but newcomers may be tempted to avoid the play for the rest of their lives.