CYRANO. To 19 June.
Scotland
CYRANO
by Edmund Rostand adapted by Jo Roets translated by Audrey van Tuykom
Catherine Wheels theatre company Tour to 2004
Runs 1hr 15min No interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 4 June at Ryan Centre Stranraer
A big play distilled rather than reduced.Amazing to think Rostand's swaggering romantic drama about 17th-century soldier-poet Cyrano could make sense as a 3-actor, 75 minute drama, but it does. With Ronnie Simon putting on a clearly false nose at the opening (one that might, apparently, have ended up with either male performer), there's no doubting the separation between appearance and reality with people, what you see is not what you get. It's a fine distinction between person and disability'.
This Belgian adaptation for young people is another example of the depth and seriousness of young people's theatre in Europe. Yet, in Gill Robertson's production for Scotland's Catherine Wheels, it's thrilling throughout, for its 10+ target or, as in Stranraer, with a largely adult audience. A full-fledged Cyrano could cost far more yet be considerably inferior.
Of course, at under half-the playing-time of Rostand's full beast, a lot has to go. But the action reconfigures, showing the lean play inside the fat one. The opening, where Cyrano improvises a poem while fighting a successful duel, loses some of its context. By the end, though, the focus on love and friendship has become intensely moving, in a way that gets under teenage embarrassment through directness and story-telling. Cyrano's soldier side validates the poet and lover for sceptical young hearts.
The setting's simple, mainly some mobile frames through which Cyrano and Christian can watch, for example, the impact of the love letters Cyrano writes and hands to their jointly-beloved Roxanne over Christian's signature. One becomes the window through which Roxanne breathes in the romantic expressions pouring from the handsome Christian, while we see that inarticulate lover repeating the words Cyrano's speaking behind him. Till Cyrano moves forward, love pushing the bounds of discretion.
Jordan Young brings an apt blandness to Christian (he contrasts a curled arrogance as Roxanne's noble would-be lover). Veronica Leer is a lively Roxanne, elegant in her 17th century dress, while Ronnie Simon's Cyrano sums up a love that dares not speak its name owing to the nose it will challenge the rest of the world to joke about. When that love is finally too late realised, the impact's tremendous.
Roxanne: Veronica Leer
Cyrano: Ronnie Simon
Christian: Jordan Young
Director: Gill Robertson
Designer: Karen Tennent
Lighting: Paul Sorley
Composer: Dave Trouton
Costume: Alison Brown
Fight director: Carter Ferguson
Assistant director: Heather Fulton
2004-06-10 10:30:45