Adapted by Glyn Maxwell from Edmund Rostand

Directed by Phil Barnes

Tickets: £15.00

Unconditional love is a bounty of limitless possibilities – chiefly pain and euphoria. There’s no wonder why it is the rhyme & reason of many a poet and performer. Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac underpins the values of loyalty and forms of expressive love with that of a rather intimate and simplistic tale of appearances and identity. Glyn Maxwell’s adaptation for Arkle Theatre champions the cleverness of the original play and the story of a roguish poet whose words can capture the stars from their place and who falls for a woman he has known his whole life, making the ultimate sacrifice for her happiness.

With the entire world seemingly at their feet, though without a penny to their name, Cyrano de Bergerac is a swordsman, poet, raconteur, and philosopher of the age. He’s certainly the only man who fills all of these requirements. But none of it makes him happy – not even the delectations of Ragueneau’s pastries or the adoration of the Gascoyne soldiers who hang on Cyrano’s stories. No, for all the complexities and mysteries of the feather-capped man, his is an issue as plain as the honker of a nose on his face: love. Specifically, for his childhood friend and cousin Roxanne. 

A herald of spoken word, Cyrano can fastidiously disarm opponents with wit and rapier. However, when it comes to matters of the heart, he is disarmed. In John Lally’s leading role, director Phil Barnes has the principal component of the show utterly safe, in deft hands. Lally achieves each element of the poet with what else – but panache. Armed with jocularity in a zealous performance (and a corker of a prosthetic nose), Lally locates elementary cleverness in Maxwell’s adaptation as they do the more sentimental and melodramatic moments, conveying (with other characters) the dismantling of outward appearances and the softer under-belly beneath. So effectively convincing that it doesn’t take long before Lally achieves the pinnacle of a Cyrano performance: you forget about that nose.

In antithesis, perfectly playing the hapless and doe-eyed Christian, a man of little word but fountains of devotion, Steven Bradley Croall carries the performance well. And as harsh as it may sound, it’s conveyed with the kindest of compliments in the acuteness in which Bradley Croall carries the performance, besotted with the young, orphaned Roxanne, never able to express themselves in a manner outside of a cheap Christmas card. Now ghost-writing for the young Cadet Christian and acting as a protector of sorts against the third man vying for Roxanne, Comte/Count de Guiche, carried with a revoltingly astute balance of poise and venom, though eventual humility in a quick turn-about, from Gregor McElvogue, who becomes just as much of a presence and a match for Lally’s Cyrano. 

Maxwell’s direction forgoes the play’s more combustive elements to lock rapier and transfixes much of the attention onto the romanticism, comedy, and communication – save for the more harrowing elements of wartime. It embraces word and play, not bogging down the quality of the writing in attempts to subdue or match its cleverness, manipulating many elements which could be a fault, into an adept stability. While the transitions between scenes can be lengthy (though truthfully, there aren’t many full-scene transitions), they are accompanied by vocals from Judith Walker and Lyndsay Kennedy, which merrily carry the pacing with Dug Campbell’s appropriately conceived original music. Where Rob Shields’ lighting is often minimal, there are elements which push it from the peripherals with flushes of palpitating scarlets and bullet-time flickers of white light to drive an intensity into the battle sequences, a much-needed urgency and infusion of movement.

Occasionally mime work for the stage causes a few discrepancies in staging, where door chimes ring one way, not the other. They’re minor blips in a production which nails the principal performances with some ensemble roles to pepper it all with some comedy. Alastair Smith’s Ragueneau is always a positive presence on the stage, and that’s not even down to the pre-show treats they bribe the crowds with. As are the quarter of Sinead Grey, Hannah Fitzpatrick, Kate Stephenson, and Laura Sochas, who flip from nuns’ habit to frenzied poets and soldiers with a manner to push the narrative forward (with some individual characterisations being stronger than others). 

And of Roxanne? The initial reservations of the role, introduced in the shadow of the Comte, are quickly dispelled as Hannah Bradley Croall maintains a presence before being able to bare a few more comedic teeth as they spin circles around Christian’s initial attempts of wooing. The use of the staging to offer a balcony for Bradley Croall to platform their performance enables them to lean harder into the physicality, aiding in bridging Barne’s efforts of a more timeless production, one with a quick connection to audiences, in an accessible delivery that pinpoints comedy, and some tremendously honest pain.

Comedically agile, Arkle Theatre’s Cyrano de Bergerac speaks with the authority of the people in a universal language but switches up just enough to deliver blows of precision. The shortness of the second act is welcome (Cyrano can historically drone on lengthier than it requires), though the tonal shift to the more sombre elements can put an initial damper on the pacing. Hannah Bradley Croall and Lally’s chemistry and ability to work off one another makes for a heartfelt finale to a waggishly apt production, and one certainly not to be sniffed at.

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