Writer: Virginia Gay, after Edmond Rostand
Director: Clare Watson
The central idea of Virginia Gay’s Cyrano – and it’s a sparky one – is to present Cyrano as a queer woman. Gay herself plays Cyrano, languishing for the love of Roxanne, who, of course, falls for conventionally hot, conventionally inarticulate soldier boy Yan (Christian in Edmond Rostand’s original play of 1897). Gay, an accomplished actor and writer, is mesmerising, and Jessica Whitehurst as Roxanne and Joseph Evans as Yan play their roles for all they’re worth.
But we can’t help but wonder if it’s Cyrano’s sexuality that prevents her from finding love. Or is it her legendary (and mercifully disembodied) nose? The whole is an artful premise that almost, almost works. But what stops that satisfying sense that this new reading truly transforms is Cyrano’s evident embarrassment about her sexuality. Given the contemporary setting, why would she be ashamed of falling for Roxanne?
An additional level of the play’s tricksiness is its metanarrative. Gay/Cyrano is both inside and outside of the play, displaying to the audience the story she is telling. It’s a distinct invocation of Pirandello’s classic Italian comedy, Six Characters in Search of an Author. And indeed, the three protagonists are supported by a chorus of three characters. These three are kept deliberately two-dimensional, labelled simply 1, 2 and 3. But their two-dimensionality is a limitation. It’s not that funny that the male chorus member, ably played by David Tarkenter, has a running joke about having a limp or that ingenue No. 3 (Tanvi Virmani) is exceedingly naïve. They mainly seem to exist for assorted scenes of partying, which are certainly fun but don’t seem essential to the plot. Only Yan is given a moment of insight, wondering if he exists mainly as a plot device – is he, he wonders, just ‘a punchline’?
Where the play really comes alive is in the classic scenes in which Cyrano helps Yan woo Roxanne. Imaginatively directed by Clare Watson, the would-be wooers Yan and Cyrano find an appealing rhythm as one speaks the words for the other. Roxanne thrills to Cyrano’s poetry, and there is a powerfully erotic scene in which she and Yan come together. Pleasingly, however, Roxanne expresses disappointment the next day. Yes, she tells Cyrano, Yan was ‘Olympic’, but the magic was missing. When the couple meet next, Yan is rendered virtually tongue-tied.
The chorus self-consciously discusses the nature of endings. Is this to be a tragedy? Or just some sort of romantic comedy? For a delicious moment, it looks as if the play will deliberately avoid either conclusion. But of course, it can’t. There’s a reunion; glitter falls from the skies, and we, the audience, don party hats and throw streamers. ‘No more poetry,’ says one character to another. But the heart of Cyrano’s story is poetry, and this must never be denied.
Runs until 11 January 2025