It now seems increasingly clear, after a couple of underwhelming productions to launch the Indhu Rubasingham regime at the National Theatre, that the RSC is the true national theatre of Great Britain when it comes to classical revivals. After sublime stagings of Othello and Hamlet in the Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey regime – which has taken the bold, even unusual, step of returning to first principles of great plays, great directors and, above all, great casts – Simon Evans’s new production of Cyrano de Bergerac boasts an Adrian Lester lead performance for the ages, but there are so many joys and brilliant touches in this staging that you’ll be enraptured throughout.
Anyone who’s ever seen a production of Edmond de Rostand’s play – which so enraptured Paris when it was first performed that de Rostand was made a Chevalier de Honneur after its opening night, a distinction that would undoubtedly have appealed to its hero – will be familiar with the broad brushstrokes of the play. Its large-nosed hero (Lester, in the role of a lifetime) is a dashing figure, as brilliant with his wit and panache as he is with a sword, but hopelessly in love with the beautiful Roxanne (Susannah Fielding), who is herself enraptured with the handsome but limited Christian (Levi Brown). Even as the dastardly Duc de Guiche (Scott Handy) himself schemes to win Roxanne’s love, Cyrano must decide whether his honour or his amorous affections are the more important. And, of course, tragedy soon comes.
Susannah Fielding as Roxanne and Levi Brown as Christian in RSCs Cyrano de Bergerac
What makes Evans’s staging of Cyrano, which comes in at a shade under three hours, so electrifying – and downright entertaining – is its willingness to take risks with the text while still respecting the basic brilliance of one of the most enduring dramas ever written. So Roxanne, who can be portrayed as haughty, vain or simply rather dim comes alive in Fielding’s utterly luminous performance, as someone who is coming to thrilling life under the influence of love. (If she doesn’t play Olivia in Twelfth Night in the next couple of years, there is no justice.)
And the supporting cast is peerless, too. Brown is excellent as someone who might not be the sharpest tool in the box but is still capable of expressing his indignation at having someone else woo for him, Handy conveys suave villainy that eventually matures into something more dignified, and there’s superb work by Christian Patterson as Ragueauneau, the pastry chef, although it is a sign of the fresh – even irreverent – approach that Evans and his co-adapter, the excellently named Debris Stevenson – have taken to the text that his appearances in the final two acts are rather more subliminal than they are in the original play. The set design, by Grace Smart, is wonderfully versatile, transporting the audience from taverns to theatres to battlefields, and Alex Baranowksi’s music – played, in a wonderfully diegetic touch, by musicians who Cyrano has won in a bet – is just the right mixture of mournful and uplifting in equal parts.
Susannah Fielding as Roxanne and Adrian Lester as Cyrano in the RSC’s Cyrano de Bergerac
But this is Lester’s show, and what a show it is. Sporting a nose that’s noticeably large and yet almost irrelevant – as it should be – his Cyrano is both indomitable romantic hero and all too human coward. It isn’t just that he can’t woo Roxanne, it is that his panache – the ability to take on a hundred men in single combat, and win – deserts him in matters of the heart. It takes a remarkably charismatic lead to be convincing in the dual role, and Lester manages this with giddy aplomb, swashbuckling and philosophising and, when needs be, falling apart. It’s a bold, brave performance in a similarly bold, brave production, which had the audience audibly sniffling before the much deserved standing ovation at the end, and I am not ashamed to admit that I was amongst their number.
Cyrano de Bergerac runs at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, until 15th November. For more information, and for bookings, please visit www.rsc.org.uk.
Photos by Marc Brenner
