Theatre
Michael Portillo - Lost for words
Published 03 May 2004
Theatre - A lovesick poet who cannot fail to seduce audiences. By Michael Portillo
Cyrano de Bergerac
National Theatre, London SE1
For me, Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac comes close to perfection. Its hero is one of the great creations of fiction. Apart from a few moments at the play's start - when, in his absence, other characters whet our appetite to meet this poet, soldier and brawler - he is on the stage almost continuously, dominating every scene in what must be one of the longest parts written for theatre. His physique is as memorable as Richard III's. He shocks us with his belli- gerent behaviour, but then wins our admiration with his combination of courage, intelligence and wit. Here is a hero who loves truth and despises insincerity, conventionality and show. When we discover the love that he feels for Roxane but dare not openly confess, we are drawn to love him.
Cyrano, in the original French or in translation, is driven by poetry. There are two scenes of almost unbearable beauty. The first is when Cyrano, covered by the dark under Roxane's balcony, impersonates the unintelligent but handsome Christian and pours out his love for the girl, relieving his heart of its burden but winning her for the lesser man. The other is the scene in the failing light of a convent garden, where the dying Cyrano betrays the secret of many years, revealing that he is the author of Christian's words and was therefore Christian's soul - the true object of Roxane's adoration.
The play's poignancy is aided by a paradox. Cyrano, the scourge of falsehood, forces his loved one to live a lie. He knows that Roxane has told Christian that it is his spirit, not his body, that she loves. She has had to discover his soul deep behind the dazzle of his superficial physical perfection. It would have been better had he been ugly, she says, but he has "triumphed over his beauty". Yet Cyrano, physically disfigured but spiritually radiant, forgoes the opportunity to make Roxane happy, robbing her of love and truth.
The National Theatre's new production has many successes. Howard Davies places Cyrano and Christian in the Franco-Prussian war. Names such as Metz, Marne and Compiegnes do not sound out of place. The battle scenes are excellent. A revolving stage allows groups of combatants to dash about in the fog of war without looking comical. There's real misery in the starvation of the Cadets de Gascogne under the command of Castel-Jaloux, and terror as the enemy attack and huge explosions rock the theatre.
Set in this period, there's no reason for Cyrano to dress like a musketeer, and Stephen Rea takes advantage of that departure from convention to present us with a modern and unusually scruffy Cyrano. He does wear a little feathered hat, which gives a touch of panache to this otherwise badly dressed poet. I have known other Cyranos to be more bombastic and vigorous, and even perhaps to appear more in love. But I rarely knew a sadder de Bergerac, and the thinly disguised pessimism that dogs Rea throughout the play is moving. During the scene under Roxane's balcony when he is able to use the pretence of being Christian for the first time to speak words of love to her, Rea covered the stage, travelling up long ramps into the audience, to tell us of his adoration. When he sat in the garden dying, reciting by heart the words of farewell to Roxane that he had first written to her from the battle zone in the name of Christian, the audience was transfixed, with many silently sobbing.
Claire Price made it entirely credible that Cyrano should be so smitten. Apart from being pretty, she is thoroughly gutsy as the part demands. Roxane must be highly intelligent to attract Cyrano, sufficiently self-assured to rebuff Christian when (left to his own devices) his poetic charm fails him, and plucky enough to journey to the war with a cart of food and wine.
Rea is an Irish Cyrano in a translation by Derek Mahon that is full of the banter of Irish pubs, including lots of four-letter words. This rendition will make traditionalists go puce, with its references to "rocket science", Einstein, "bollock naked", "space cadets", "eco-friendly" and "shock and awe". However, it properly conveys the bawdiness into which Cyrano lapses when he is not in Roxane's company. There are some very witty lines: "He drank it off like finest Bordeaux, he who never had much time for H2O." Most importantly, Mahon rose to the challenge of the love scenes, showing respect for the quality of Rostand's verse and providing Cyrano with some very beautiful couplets.
Proof of Rea's success is that I left the theatre bewildered by Cyrano's refusal to claim the love that was his for the asking, and equally impressed by the nobility of that self-denial. Rostand appeared to be a genius when he wrote Cyrano at the age of 29. It won 40 curtain calls on its first night. The National Theatre production reminds us how sad it is that he never produced anything as fine again.
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