A native American spin on Shakespeare

CRITICISM of The Wooster Group's Shakespeare adaptation, Cry, Trojans! (Troilus & Cressida), has run the gamut from being confusing at best, to racially offensive, at worst. But as an experimental adaptation of one of Shakespeare's more convoluted (and boring, may I say) plays, Troilus and Cressida, the hodgepodge reconstruction of native American culture on stage certainly helped distract from the play itself.

Founder and play director Elizabeth LeCompte, long known for generating experimental works, adopted the native American culture to depict Trojans in the play that's essentially about the Trojans and the Greeks.

In the original production for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, The Wooster Group was invite to play the part of the Trojans, to the Royal Shakespeare Company's Greeks in the full run of Troilus and Cressida. But for this solo company adaptation, the group decided to tell the tale mainly from the Trojan side.