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Feb. 27th, 2020 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsLast week I saw a National Theater Live live-cast production of a new adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac starring James McAvoy, Anita-Joy Uwajeh and Eben Figueiredo, and I'm still thinking about it; I didn't agree with all the choices made, but it was an incredibly compelling production.
The thing I liked best about this Cyrano was how fully it engaged with questions of art and artifice and poetry -- the translation is mostly rhyming and it's significant that it rhymes; Cyrano's friend Ragueneau runs a poetry workshop where she firmly instructs her students that rhyme is essential, verbal duels become something akin to rap battles, and Cyrano only drops the rhymes and speaks in blank verse during his most vulnerable and honest moment, during the balcony sequence. At the end of the play, after the tragedy and the timeskip, our cast are just beginning to grapple with the introduction of prose. The language is, frankly, gorgeous, and the cast all manage to pull it off the tricky feat where it sounds like poetry and like natural dialogue at the same time.
The constant verbal artifice is set up in very deliberate contrast to an incredibly stripped-down black box set, with the cast using very little to convey setting and action except their microphones (with which they occasionally duel.) No costume changes, which includes The Nose, though James McAvoy actually does a surprisingly skilled job conjuring a nose right onto his very conventionally attractive face using only the Power of Acting.
...I mean, that said, I still have a little bit of trouble with a Cyrano in which Cyrano is the most conventionally attractive person on the stage, especially after seeing Peter Dinklage as Cyrano, and spending a lot of time thinking about all the other things you can say with The Nose and all the reasons a person might have to reject society with aggressive style before it has a chance to reject firstback. I would have desperately loved to see the cast of the musical I saw in the fall handle this text, but conflicted as I am, I am also glad I got a chance to see McAvoy in the part; it's by far the most interesting acting I've ever seen from him.
Some other points of note about this particular Cyrano adaptation:
- CHRISTIAN KISSES CYRANO! ... admittedly it's a.) really not set up by much in the text and b.) Christian literally gets shot IMMEDIATELY afterwards, which is kind of a bummer on both counts; still, I experienced way more of An Emotion than I expected when I realized it was actually going to happen. (I also really liked the staging in which Christian then just sits on the stage in between Roxane and Cyrano for the rest of the show)
- I understand why you might not wish to send Roxane to a nunnery at the end but since instead it's heavily implied that she's become an alcoholic in some kind of weird pseudo-prostitution relationship with de Guiche I don't think that's ... better ..... they also textually make Roxane the first female student at the university, which is neat, but then they don't do anything with that. I appreciate that the ending leaves space for her anger, and certainly the actress is great and is doing her best, but a lot of the rest of the textual choices made with her felt like sort of lip service to A Feminist Roxane that never went much deeper than surface level
- LE BRET DIES D: D: D:
I believe there's going to be a few more opportunities to see live broadcasts (I know there are a couple coming up in Boston in mid-March); I'd definitely recommend it if you have the chance! And then come back and talk to me about it, because I'd love to hear what people think.
The thing I liked best about this Cyrano was how fully it engaged with questions of art and artifice and poetry -- the translation is mostly rhyming and it's significant that it rhymes; Cyrano's friend Ragueneau runs a poetry workshop where she firmly instructs her students that rhyme is essential, verbal duels become something akin to rap battles, and Cyrano only drops the rhymes and speaks in blank verse during his most vulnerable and honest moment, during the balcony sequence. At the end of the play, after the tragedy and the timeskip, our cast are just beginning to grapple with the introduction of prose. The language is, frankly, gorgeous, and the cast all manage to pull it off the tricky feat where it sounds like poetry and like natural dialogue at the same time.
The constant verbal artifice is set up in very deliberate contrast to an incredibly stripped-down black box set, with the cast using very little to convey setting and action except their microphones (with which they occasionally duel.) No costume changes, which includes The Nose, though James McAvoy actually does a surprisingly skilled job conjuring a nose right onto his very conventionally attractive face using only the Power of Acting.
...I mean, that said, I still have a little bit of trouble with a Cyrano in which Cyrano is the most conventionally attractive person on the stage, especially after seeing Peter Dinklage as Cyrano, and spending a lot of time thinking about all the other things you can say with The Nose and all the reasons a person might have to reject society with aggressive style before it has a chance to reject firstback. I would have desperately loved to see the cast of the musical I saw in the fall handle this text, but conflicted as I am, I am also glad I got a chance to see McAvoy in the part; it's by far the most interesting acting I've ever seen from him.
Some other points of note about this particular Cyrano adaptation:
- CHRISTIAN KISSES CYRANO! ... admittedly it's a.) really not set up by much in the text and b.) Christian literally gets shot IMMEDIATELY afterwards, which is kind of a bummer on both counts; still, I experienced way more of An Emotion than I expected when I realized it was actually going to happen. (I also really liked the staging in which Christian then just sits on the stage in between Roxane and Cyrano for the rest of the show)
- I understand why you might not wish to send Roxane to a nunnery at the end but since instead it's heavily implied that she's become an alcoholic in some kind of weird pseudo-prostitution relationship with de Guiche I don't think that's ... better ..... they also textually make Roxane the first female student at the university, which is neat, but then they don't do anything with that. I appreciate that the ending leaves space for her anger, and certainly the actress is great and is doing her best, but a lot of the rest of the textual choices made with her felt like sort of lip service to A Feminist Roxane that never went much deeper than surface level
- LE BRET DIES D: D: D:
I believe there's going to be a few more opportunities to see live broadcasts (I know there are a couple coming up in Boston in mid-March); I'd definitely recommend it if you have the chance! And then come back and talk to me about it, because I'd love to hear what people think.
no subject
Date: 2020-02-28 04:40 am (UTC)That's very nice.
but since instead it's heavily implied that she's become an alcoholic in some kind of weird pseudo-prostitution relationship with de Guiche I don't think that's ... better .....
That's . . . um.
I'm glad to hear about McAvoy. I like him, but he is one of the actors I feel is not often asked to do very interesting things.
no subject
Date: 2020-02-28 03:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-02-28 07:48 pm (UTC)I saw him first as Mr. Tumnus and therefore did not expect him to turn into a Hollywood leading man, but then I think Atonement (2007) happened.
-- aside from just the fact that being in a theatrical production absolutely asks different things from a person, and in this case I think more challenging ones.
Agreed.
(Speaking of actors, I saw from
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Date: 2020-02-28 04:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-02-28 03:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-02-28 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-02-28 07:41 am (UTC)My work friend says it really raised their opinion of McAvoy as an actor.
(I know the story but only by cultural osmosis, I don't think I've ever seen a production of it or read it. I think I may have heard some of a radio play in a car journey with my dad once.)
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Date: 2020-02-28 03:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-02-28 12:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-02-28 03:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-10 08:42 pm (UTC)