Word: ashton
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...current offering at the Tufts Arena Theatre, The Chrysalis, an experimental play by Norman Ashton, is a curious bill of fare. One is tempted to regard it as an exotic dish, for which one admires the ingenuity and curses the indigestion...
Troilus, the illegitimate son of Priam, declares himself a "happy little warmonger" and so he is until Cressida (or Crisseyida, as Ashton would have it) appears in Priam's court. The reason Cressida is in court is that her father, Calchas, has deserted to the Greeks, and Cressida is therefore in danger of being adjudged a security risk. Troilus naturally defends her against the ancient Committee on Un-Trojan Activities and, naturally enough, the two fall in love...
...Ashton, who also directs the play, has taken the overworked Troilus and Cressida theme, retained the Trojan setting, and come up with two acts that purport to depict the horrors of war. By war, Ashton means War, and he has underscored the universality of his theme by a sometimes clever juxtaposition of the ancient and the modern...
...love in bed. Love's victory is Pyrrhic, however, and Cressida soon succumbs to a Prince of Greece, who can provide security and a house in Connecticut. The Greek is nevertheless the tool of Mars, who is the real villain, and provides the climax, which is tragic for Ashton and perhaps slightly comic for the audience...
Although the plot is not so cryptic as a summary might indicate, Ashton has collected a menage of rather dissonant symbols and attempted to bring them together in a harmonious structure that only partly succeeds. Ashton must be seen in reaction to 19th century "realism," in whose place he would substitute a reconciliation of the Romantic with the Epic. He attempts to involve the audience emotionally (Romantically) and then to shock them intellectually (Epically...