Character conceptions of Shakespeare's Cressida in major twentieth-century productions

Abstract

For three centuries, Shakespeare's Cressida was universally considered to be a fully culpable "daughter of the game." However, as a result of changing cultural conditions at the beginning of the twentieth century, her motivations within the play began to be re-examined. The threat of war in Europe and the women's struggle for equal rights renewed interest in Troilus and Cressida. From this time forward, the play was in constant production. Cressida was regarded as a coquette and a courtesan by critics and directors until the 1960s when Joseph Papp (at the New York Shakespeare Festival) portrayed her as a victim of men and war. In the 1970s, feminist critics in particular studied the nuances of one of Shakespeare's most maligned women. Their observations proved an insightful, three-dimensional analysis of a young woman in a war-torn country. Regardless of the perception of Cressida's motivations by modern thinkers, their considerations of her character were ignored in productions of the 1970s and 1980s.