"The new Public Theater production of this relatively obscure Shakespeare play gets many things right, but its biggest triumph is to make us reconsider the reputation of a work derided for haphazard jumps from romantic declarations to military strategizing, from bawdy banter to moral questioning...A vivid, fleet-footed rendering by the director Daniel Sullivan and his adept cast, who weave the play’s disparate strands into a surprisingly effective whole."
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"Daniel Sullivan’s marvelously intelligent and thoughtful modern-dress production of Shakespeare’s darkly comic problem play...Drenched in irony and whipping in tone from bawdy comedy to near-nihilistic tragedy, 'Troilus and Cressida' offers little by way of plot or sympathetic characters...But its language is richly rewarding, and its understanding of military and sexual politics, elucidated in Sullivan’s staging, feels trenchantly modern."
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"What scholars call a 'problem' play...What’s a Shakespeare festival to do? First, hire the director Sullivan, an expert de-muddler, to offer the best case possible. Next, hire actors who, at a minimum, can make the verse flow clean. Then, put the director and cast together to develop characterizations that ring fresh and clear...Making these story lines, or parts of them, vibrate with tension is quite a victory, but doing so cannot win the war of 'Troilus and Cressida.' It is still a blur,"
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"Director Daniel Sullivan prudently races through the boring stuff to get to the second act, in which he sends two armies of handsome, able-bodied actors into homoerotic battle to fight the suddenly sexy Trojan War…Under Sullivan’s direction, the seven-year war never lets up. Even as scenes are being played on stage, soldiers roam the theater aisles and do battle just outside the non-existent walls of the stark industrial set."
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"Sullivan, abetted by an excellent ensemble, does about as well as one can with this difficult play. He stages the complicated action with fast-paced vigor and clarity, and imbues the violent battle scenes with visceral intensity...The plotting is mind-numbingly intricate…That it registers as powerfully as it does is a testament to the fine performances...This is a 'Troilus and Cressida' in which the play is very much the thing, and that, ironically, is its chief weakness."
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"The play is choppy and long (running three hours). But Daniel Sullivan, who has directed many shows in the park, delivers a smart production that views the ancient conflict from a contemporary standpoint…The battle scenes are built up with fight choreography, weaponry and splattered blood…As Cressida, Ismenia Mendes draws a full character arc out of a problematic role."
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"Sullivan’s modern dress production manages to smooth over the tonal shifts quite effectively, staging the romantic scenes with great fervor and the comedy as pointed satire...Directorial brilliance can only go so far without an able cast, and this one comprised of veterans and rookies is sublime...This is not an easy play, but given our own unsolvable problems echoing global conflicts today, there is much gold to be mined here."
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"This vital production set in modern times is exactly what Shakespeare intended…This is Shakespeare at his most subversive and in a dynamite production like this, it is absolutely thrilling to behold…Thanks to specific and fleshy performances, we get to intimately understand each character's relationship to the conflict…By setting his production in this century, Sullivan draws a none-too-subtle parallel between the protracted conflict in 'The Illiad' and America's own seemingly endless wars."
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