Cyrano will help his true rival for her affections, the handsome new soldier in town, Christian, played by Eben Figueiredo as the kind of ill-cultured young man who wears his inarticulacy as a badge of honor, but whose insecurity is manifested by hands that judder and curl in on themselves whenever he’s asked to speak. The warrior-poet Cyrano regards his nose as his “moral compass” in his crusade against the corrupt and mediocre he makes powerful enemies in the process, including the vile de Guiche (Tom Edden), who also has his eyes on Roxane. And yet, when the man bemoans his condition as “to be ugly and in love” we believe it, because of the watery-eyed pathos and resigned humor that the Scot brings to the reflective, lonely, pained moments between Cyrano’s aggression and bravado.įundamentally, it’s business as usual. Ragueneau describes the hero as “the all-time crazy genius of the spoken word,” giving Cyrano a rock star halo that his appearance enforces: dressed all in black, tight-fitting jeans and jacket, boots, buzz cut and beard. Incidentally, McAvoy’s natural Glaswegian accent adds to the “outsider” dialects on display, and the sense of language bristling live and varied from street level. And when Cyrano confronts the man being lined up to marry his beloved Roxanne (Anita-Joy Uwajeh), their duel takes the form of a rap battle - the microphones in their hands being the closest these characters will come to a rapier.
As the scene-setting poet Ligniere (Nima Taleghani) discusses the merits of rhyme with sweet-toothed bookseller Leila Ragueneau (Michele Austin), it’s with a rapper’s thrust and delight in language. The ensemble first emerges monochrome from the shadows of the stage to face the audience head-on, accompanied by a mix of church music and beatboxing. The opening scenes establish the approach. The use of the mics also implies stand-up, narrowing the distance between actor and audience. Staging is minimal, effectively an empty white box, save for a large mirror, plastic chairs, a lighting rig and, mostly notably, microphone stands - not for audibility (actors still have head mics) but to underline the fact that much of the story revolves around performance, from the theater confrontation that opens the play, to the self-referential acknowledgement of language as a tool or weapon of love, politics, violence and connection. Period costume and swords have gone the same way as the famous appendage, to be replaced by contemporary streetwear. Rostand’s Paris, while still clearly designated as 17th century, is now peopled with the multicultural inhabitants you’d find in a modern banlieue his verse is made to crackle with the urban urgency of rap and grime. With adapter Martin Crimp, they offer a version of the play that is dynamically remastered for a contemporary audience, particularly a younger one. It’s the fourth collaboration between McAvoy and director Jamie Lloyd, after Three Days of Rain, Macbeth and, most recently, The Ruling Class. The actor never disappoints onstage, and this is a multifaceted, thrilling, deeply moving performance. Whatever the motivation might be (a challenge to our imaginations a reminder that such considerations are subjective as well as superficial), James McAvoy makes us believe in the nose, its size and all the emotional and psychological consequences of it. And so it’s a bold move, one of many in this dazzlingly inventive and entertaining new version of the play, for its star to walk on stage unenhanced, to play Cyrano with only his own, rather modest schnoz. Such chat isn’t idle, given the significance of the facial feature for Edmond Rostand’s tortured hero - a brilliant man in so many ways, brought low by his perceived ugliness.
Even Gerard Depardieu, already generously endowed in that regard, employed prosthetic assistance for his lauded 1990 screen portrayal, as did Jose Ferrer for his Oscar-winning turn in 1950. It seems an appendage they couldn’t do without. You might say that an actor taking on the title role of Cyrano de Bergerac doesn’t have to fill his predecessors’ shoes, as such, but to match the length of their nose.
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