A few months ago, after the death of Jonathan Miller, we found ourselves arguing about new interpretations of classic plays.
The National Theater's Cyrano, beamed live into the Bristol Showcase, is a case in point. I don't think it worked. But it didn't work interestingly. At times it failed rather brilliantly. I was glad they had done it and I was glad I had seen it.
There is pretty much no set, and fairly minimal costumes There is, in particular, no nose. Rostand's words have been recast into what I assume is a hip-hop idiom. That style of performance poetry with great emphasis on strong rhymes, often coming in the middle of lines, and slightly exaggerated meter. Once you stop being surprised, this makes sense: the play is about poetry and fighting and bragging and male ego, so it worked quite well for Cyrano's duel with Valvert to basically be a poetry slam.
We are dealing with a very stylized kind of theater. Individual performances are very naturalistic indeed; but even the most intimate speeches are spoken directly to the audience; not to the other characters. Actions are referred to which are not happening on the stage. ("Don't do that to the letter!" says Cyrano in the final seen, even though Roxanne is not doing anything at all.) I almost felt at times that I was watching a group of actors narrate the story; with the movements and business on the stage not being part of the tale.
James McAvoy does Cyrano with a Scots accent; broad during the comic scenes, much more realistic in the romantic ones; Eben Figueiredo's Christian is London-Asian. The famous balcony scene -- the heart, arguably, of the play -- is one of the cleverest pieces of theatre. I think I have ever scene. (You remember the story: Cyrano, the poet, whispers romantic lines for the inarticulate, tongue-tied Christian to deliver to Roxanne; even though Cyrano himself truly loves her and is saying the things he would like to say himself. "This will totally work" says Cyrano. "I saw it in an old Steve Martin movie".) There's no balcony, no scenery of any kind: the characters are sitting facing the audience on four chairs. At one point, Christian tries to copy Cyrano's Scottish accent; then Cyrano does a passable impersonation of Christian's voice when he starts talking to Roxanne directly. And it goes on, and on, and on; Cyrano bearing his soul and revealing his true feelings. It's a phenomenally powerful moment. McAvoy will certainly get the award for Most Acting; but all three contribute to making the scene work.
So far, I am mostly on side. There are some quite clever anachronisms; the idea, in the final act, that prose is replacing poetry as the preferred means of expression, and that a new concept called "fiction" is coming in, with Cyrano as an early-adopter, having obvious ironic connections to a world where you-tube celebrities and influencers are replacing record contracts and print media. The character of Roxanne is always going to be a problem: as written she has very little agency; little more than a madonna for Cyrano and Christian to swoon over. In this production she is recast as a student of literature; which kind of works. She keeps making pointed remarks about objectification and the male gaze, which I felt really didn't work at all. I don't object to her calling De Guiche a "fucking piece of shit" when he volunteers the cadets for a suicide mission. But for her to say to Cyrano in the final scene that "Christian and I never fucked" and that she's fucked lots of men since seems to me to be cloth eared and incongruous.
And here is the problem with the production. Cyrano de Bergerac is not a realistic play. The basic situation is preposterous, unbelievable. It's a fairy tale; a romantic comedy with a sad ending. We may shed a tear for Cyrano, but we fully expect him to swagger back for the final curtain call. Tonight, the final scenes -- moved from the nunnery to Ragueneau's "coffee and book shop" seem to abandon the text altogether, as if the translator, rather than putting Rostund's words into a modern idiom, tried to re-imagine what a real life Roxanne would say to a real life Cyrano once the subterfuge was revealed. (She has kept the letters from Christian, who died in the war, for her whole life; never knowing that they are really from Cyrano; Cyrano's masochistic sense of honour means that he never told her the truth.) But I don't think that a naturalistic interpretation of Roxanne and Cyrano is really feasible; the situation is too absurd. Cyrano's final speech is completely recast: instead of narrating a mock epic about his final battle he turns into a stand up comic and starts telling "man goes into a bar..." jokes. His final line is "the hero always gets the last...."
The actors were clearly enjoying themselves. McAvoy and Uwajeh both had literal tears in their eyes. It was a virtuoso performance, but it left me rather cold. And, rather like Ernie Wise's version of Romeo and Juliet, they cut the line about Cyrano's panache...
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