| 03 September 2009
The Hub
29 August – 5 September, 20.00
A tree, bare of leaves and surrounded by snow; eerie silence, and an old man sitting motionless in a wheelchair, staring into nothing...
Such was the scene that greeted us as we entered the Main Hall of the Hub for Henryson’s The Testament of Cresseid, a tragic poem detailing the fate of ‘False Cresseid’, Prince Troilus’ unfaithful lover. After abandoning the Trojan Troilus for the sake of Diomede, a Greek, Cresseid is in her turn cast off; on complaining to the god Cupid of his own and his mother Venus’ treatment of her, Cresseid is sentenced by the gods to wander the world as a leper and ‘throughout her life with pain she would be oppressed’.
Jimmy Yuill, in the role of Henryson, had a beautiful, lyrical voice, conveying at times bitterly, at times angrily, but always with pity, the terrible end of Cresseid. The onus was principally on him; though there were effective moments when Cresseid (Anneika Rose) took up her own tale (in a voice which was certainly not ‘raucous as a rook’s, hideous, coarse and rough’), and occasional interjections from Cupid (Richard Madden) and Saturn (Andrew Dallmeyer), these were in voice-over.
Mr Yuill was the only member of the cast to appear on stage; this, combined with the fact that he stayed seated throughout the play, made it visually rather unexciting, in spite of the rugged image of the tree. However, the passion and feeling he put into the words themselves, and the story, itself compelling (if very unfair to poor Cresseid!), made for a fascinating forty five minutes.
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