THEATRE
Written by Virginia Gay after Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano
By
Melbourne Theatre Company
At Southbank Theatre, The Sumner until Oct 29, 2022
Reviewer: Kate Herbert
Stars: ****
This review is published only on this blog, but I will do a radio review on 3MBS Arts Weekly on Sat 8 Oct 2022. KH
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| CYRANO_Robin Goldsworthy (front), Milo Hartill, Holly Austin, Virginia Gay-picJeff Busby |
Cyrano is a rollicking good night in the theatre with an intelligent and witty script by Virginia Gay, inventive direction by Sarah Goodes and delightfully quirky performances.
The production literally breaks the fourth wall not only by frequently addressing the audience, but with its set design (Elizabeth Gadsby) that features a demolished brick theatre wall that allows us to peer into the performance space that appears to be a backstage area.
Gay’s interpretation of Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano begins with a motley bunch of actors wrestling with ways to represent the famous Cyrano story on stage. This is meta-theatre: art talking about itself as it is created on stage.
Gay’s character is both the creator of this version of the story and Cyrano him - or in this case - herself. Cyrano is in love with Roxanne (Tuuli Narkle) who is, in this depiction, a feisty, smart, attractive and lusty young woman who insists that her character is “fully realised”. Roxanne is in lust with the Adonis-like, dim-witted soldier and “himbo”, Yan (Claude Jabbour), who has truncated his full name, Christian, in an attempt to sound modern and cool.
An odd and entertainingly mismatched clutch of three unnamed characters (Holly Austin, Robin Goldsworthy, Milo Hartill) act as a chorus, commenting on Cyrano’s plans, arguing among themselves and scrambling to keep up with Cyrano’s decisions.
Gay’s script and Goodes’ production create a charming, often hilarious and ultimately moving re-imagining of Cyrano, the poet and wordsmith who, despite his/her (Cyrano is a “he’ in Rostand’s version) wit and charisma, feels profoundly unattractive because of his/her enormous nose. In a balcony scene reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet, Cyrano decides to help the tongue-tied Yan seduce Roxanne by speaking his own entrancing lover’s words to her as if Cyrano were Yan.
The production is laugh out loud funny, surprising and sensitive. There are several charming songs (Xani Kolac) and some delightful clownish characterisations and comic business by the chorus.
The ending feels a little as if it crowbars the Cyrano-as a-woman storyline into the plot and ignores the nose problem completely, but we forgive this contrivance because the production and its actors are so charming.
by Kate Herbert
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| CYRANO_Robin Goldsworthy (front), Milo Hartill, Holly Austin, Virginia Gay-pic Jeff Busby |
Cast
Virginia Gay – Cyrano
Holly Austin -3 (Chorus)
Robin Goldsworthy -1 (Chorus)
Milo Hartill - 1 (Chorus)
Claude Jabbour-Yan
Tuuli Narkle - Roxanne
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