Theatre review: Cyrano de Bergerac

My last encounter with Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac was Jamie Lloyd's rap battle reinvention, a version that won't be forgotten in a hurry. But while Simon Evans' production for the RSC is more traditional - nose and all - it proves striking and emotional in its own way. Adrian Lester plays Cyrano, who leads a troop of 17th century French army reserves, and is a curious mix of extremes. He's confident to the point of arrogance in his abilities both with a sword and with words, and with good reason: He can fight off a hundred men at a time, or take a man down in verbal combat instead. He's as likely to do either to any man who dares mention his unusual appearance, the reason for the contrasting, wildly insecure side of his personality: Since childhood he has been bullied for his unusually large nose.

It's led to him becoming such a formidable adversary to anyone who so much as says the word "nose," but it's also left him convinced of the fact that he's repugnant and unlovable.

Some hope he might be able to overcome this comes when his childhood friend, the recently widowed Roxane (Susannah Fielding,) returns to Paris and he builds up the courage to tell her he's always loved her. But before he gets the chance she confesses she's developed a crush on his new young recruit, and instead of competing for her affections Cyrano puts all his efforts into helping the nice-but-inarticulate Christian (Levi Brown) appear to be the man she thinks he is.

Evans and Debris Stevenson's adaptation leans into the tragicomedy of Rostand's play, with a lot of energy and humour put into proceedings from the famous scene of Cyrano reacting to insults about his nose with an improvised stream of alternative, cleverer burns of his own, to the gruff banter of a troop of soldiers stationed away from the action. But the second act does see them unexpectedly deployed into war, and while the funny lines persist - in slightly bitterer form - things take a much darker form.

In fact while the play has a beautiful and melancholy final scene, the most moving moment comes earlier, when the soldiers face almost certain death, having been tactically sacrificed, largely out of the petty jealousy of their aristocratic commander the Comte de Guiche (Scott Handy.) Lester brings real depth to his role here, and having already given us the character's combative nature he really sells the realisation that, for all that his legendary abilities can, and do, save him again, they can't do the same for all his men.

A play full of soldiers is inevitably full of testosterone, but Evans and Stevenson have made sure Fielding has plenty to get her teeth into as well: Her Roxane isn't an ingenue, and it's stressed that she's Cyrano's contemporary. If her fixation on a younger man is immature, it probably comes from being married off young to a hated old man and only now having the freedom to flirt, but the pair's recurring word game of improvising poems whose words all start with a single randomly-chosen letter marks her out as Cyrano's true equal. Memorable smaller roles for Greer Dale-Foulkes as Roxane's maid, who's horny for Cyrano's long-suffering best friend Le Bret (Philip Cumbus,) and even Sunny Chung's very brief appearance as a sweary nun, means the women aren't entirely sidelined in a story that often comes back to male egos clashing.

In the same week that two new National Theatre shows embraced overt theatricality, this has a sense of that at times as well: Opening on Grace Smart's old-fashioned stage bathed in red light (I guess Roxane put it on, even though she didn't have to,) with Cyrano first demonstrating his verbal prowess by humiliating an actor he doesn't like, the character is also, thanks to winning an unusual bet, always accompanied by a trio of musicians, which means Alex Baranowski's musical cues reflecting Cyrano's triumphs and disappointments are actually playing in-universe. 

Evans' production may not be a radical one but in many ways I'm happier to see that than another overt take on how this 19th century recreation of 17th century verbal sparring has direct descendants in 21st century art. Instead a subtler updating of the text in the original setting still proves as capable of moving a modern audience to laughter and emotion.

Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand in a version by Simon Evans and Debris Stevenson is booking until the 15th of November at the Swan Theatre,  Stratford-upon-Avon.

Running time: 2 hours 55 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner.