Austin Eckert approaches Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida not as a grand romantic tragedy, but as a destabilizing, unsettling study of power, war, and human contradiction. When he began preparing to play Diomedes in Shakespeare BASH’d’s new production of the rarely performed play at The Theatre Centre January 29 – February 8, 2026, Eckert was immediately intrigued by how Shakespeare reframes the Trojan War, one of Western culture’s foundational myths.
His thoughtful approach to the play is reflective of his practice across the breadth of his work. Eckert is a Nigerian-Canadian actor whose career spans theatre, film, and television, and who has become a distinctive presence in Canadian classical and contemporary performance. Hailing from Regina, Saskatchewan, and having trained at the Canadian College of Performing Arts in Victoria, Eckert has appeared in multiple seasons at the Stratford Festival, with roles including Malcolm (Macbeth), Florizel (The Winter’s Tale), Laertes (Hamlet), and Sebastian (Twelfth Night). On screen, he is best known for his role as Miles Kirkland on the sci-fi series NarcoLeap, as well as a wide range of genre television work.
A pantomime of sorts
“What struck me about Troilus and Cressida before we started the work was the perspective and opinion Shakespeare invites his audience to consider, regarding one of our most famous and influential ancient Greek stories,” he notes. “It seems to me that he almost wrote a pantomime of sorts. In the text, the characters are portrayed in a heightened and hyperbolic manner. This not only provides clarity for us as actors in our pursuit of playing these characters, but also, I think, is a comment on the madness, hypocrisy and buffoonery that is war.”
As is his wont, Eckert extended his preparation beyond Shakespeare’s text. Reading Homer’s epic poem The Iliad (which tells the story of an extended part of the Trojan War), he became interested in what shifts when divine authority recedes. “I was surprised to find such contrast in the characters’ relationships to Gods,” he explains. “Because of that, I was excited to engage in the play and see what happens to the plot once the direct influence of multiple Gods is removed from the foreground of the story—and we are left with flawed humans and their flawed humanity as the engine.”
For Eckert, Shakespeare’s decision to foreground human agency, rather than divine intervention, is crucial and inseparable from the play’s heightened theatricality. Without gods to arbitrate meaning or justice, responsibility rests squarely with fallible people making self-serving choices. The result is an exaggerated world where ambition, fear, and desire collide unchecked – and where moral certainty becomes a dangerous illusion, rather than a viable guiding principle.
Diomedes
The play’s purely human engine is central to the character of Diomedes, a Greek warrior often positioned as both seducer and opportunist. Eckert’s connection to the role grew out of the production’s ethos and its rarity. “The amazing thing about James and Julia, who are the team behind BASH’d, is that they see all kinds of theatre and engage in so many different contexts of Shakespeare,” he enthuses. “I sat down with the team at Shakespeare BASH’d in Stratford last summer, and when they mentioned producing Troilus and Cressida, my ears definitely pricked up. It’s not a play that I’ve ever seen a poster for, let alone seen produced anywhere, so my feeling was that the unknown quality of this seldom-performed play was totally up their alley.”
The company’s stripped-back, actor-centred approach was the major appeal for Eckert: “BASH’d is renowned for … engaging Shakespeare in a manner that prioritizes the actors’ engagement with the words on the page. So I knew they had something interesting brewing.” He thought to himself, “What an opportunity – When is the next time Troilus and Cressida will be produced?” By way of elaboration, he explains, “There’s something democratizing and permissive about paring back a Shakespeare production to its essential elements.”
His specific interest in Diomedes stemmed from curiosity around “how such a long and drawn- out conflict (the Trojan War) would affect and alter a man’s conscience and principles.” By way of answer, his Diomedes is no one-note villain: “In this play, Shakespeare invites us to become close friends with ambiguity and grey areas. Diomedes for me exists in this ‘space between.’ Certainly, the man behaves badly. But I believe it’s less out of cynicism and more out of a sense of desperate ambition. When people are convinced that there is no good way out of a situation, they exercise what agency they believe they have.”
And Diomedes’ complexity provides grist for the mill of learning: “As we witness characters wrestle with agency, our audience is encouraged to do the same.”
Love and war
Set during the later years of the Trojan War, Troilus and Cressida centres on the young Trojan prince Troilus (Deivan Steele), who falls passionately in love with Cressida (Breanne Tice), daughter of a Trojan priest. Shakespeare drew on Homer’s Iliad for the war’s framework and Geoffrey Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde for the lovers’ story, weaving epic conflict together with intimate betrayal. The pair’s secret courtship develops amid military stalemate and political maneuvering – only to collapse when the Trojans trade Cressida to the Greeks as part of a prisoner exchange. At this point, the Greek warrior Diomedes (Eckert) pursues her, while Troilus watches helplessly as loyalty, love, and identity blur and battle with simple survival.
Alongside the couple’s star-crossed story, Shakespeare stages fiery debates among the Greek and Trojan leaders — Achilles (Andrew Iles), Hector (Jordin Hall), Ulysses (Jennifer Działoszynski), Ajax (Adriano Reis), Pandarus (Geoffrey Armour), and scathing commentator Thersites (Julia Nish-Lapidus) — that steadily erode traditional ideals of heroism. Rejecting the conventional tragic arc, the play relies on irony and psychological realism, rather than moral closure. In the process, it exposes how war corrodes intimacy, ethics, and human judgment … and ultimately leaves its conflicts deliberately unresolved. Rounding out the cast are David Mackett as Nestor/Priam, Kate Martin as Helen/Cassandra/Alexandra, Isaiah Kolundzic as Agamemnon, Felix Beauchamp as Patroclus, Rianna Persaud as Aeneas, and Ben Yoganathan as Paris/Menelaus.
For Eckert, the play’s thematic core remains simple and unmistakable: “Love and war: how they’re completely antithetical, and yet often tragically intertwined.” And he sees clear contemporary resonance: “Toronto audiences in 2026 will be all too familiar with war rhetoric and the posturing of arrogant, despotic nations. In Troilus and Cressida, we peer inside secret and consequential war rooms at figures responsible for the life and death decisions made in war, and see who ultimately suffers the consequences.”
No certainties
He welcomes the play’s refusal to reassure. “In the theatre, it’s fantastic and thrilling whenever we can leave an audience with more questions than answers. Having conversations in the lobby, on the way home, or at work the next day to sort out your feelings and explore what you think is such a gift. I hope that this show challenges aspects of what we consider to be honour, masculinity, and reason. As human beings we can get into all sorts of trouble when we think we know some kind of morality is a certainty.”
Eckert closes our conversation by situating the production within Toronto’s theatre ecology. “Having a theatre company like Shakespeare BASH’d in Toronto is so healthy and important for the city. To produce full-length Shakespeare with a dedicated and passionate troupe like this is inspiring. And the dedicated community that gathers around to listen to 400-year-old works for three hours at a time is a testament to the enduring value of our theatrical tradition.
“I hope to see you there!”
William Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida, directed by James Wallis, runs January 29 to February 8, 2026 at The Theatre Centre, BMO Incubator, presented by Shakespeare BASH’d. Tickets are available at theatrecentre.org.
Arpita Ghosal, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2026
