St Lawrence Shakespeare festival: Cyrano de Bergerac: an excellent English language adaptation saved by the strength of the lead performance.
Cyrano de Bergerac, the character who really existed in the 17th century, and Edmond Rostand’s comédie dramatique, (written in 1897) based on that individual, seem to be lighting up stages around the world especially in a new prize-winning play written and directed by Alexis Michalik (Edmond – 2016). This romantic adaptation by Michalik of Rostand’s writing process which gives us an intimate glance into the life of the poet and the way Rostand might have composed his own play, recently received numerous awards in Paris. Then the film version (2019) has become an extraordinary hit playing in French language theatres around the world.
But even before that we have seen many film versions of Rostand’s play, adapted to the screen with José Ferrer, Gérard Dépardieu and multiple actors of great talent playing the tragically deformed romantic poet, in love with his cousin Roxane but whose life is radically changed by the arrival of Christian, a handsome young cadet incapable of speaking the poetic words of love that would woo a beautiful woman, He begs Cyrano to write to Roxane for him and the subterfuge, which even comes to one of its highlights in a balcony scene borrowed from Shakespeare”s Romeo and Juliet, captures the heart of the beautiful lady. Later, under the stress of battle, the audience soon understands that the object of both their affection is really seduced by the Cyrano’s poetic love letters,but the truth does not appear until the final scene which has become one of the most moving moments of romantic theatre, inspired by the life of this 17th century poet,who was also an excellent swordsman, and one of the first writers of science fiction of his time. Note the scene when he distracts Christian’s rival De Guiche by pretending he is a man fallen from the moon, thus giving Christian and Roxane just enough time to get married.!!
Nevertheless, Rostand’s play, even though it spoke about the 17th Century Musketeers, the personal palace guards of the Royal family of Louis XIII, was written by Rostand in 1897, during the Belle époque when Feydeau and the French farce were coming of age. Thus it would seem to have appeared in the wrong literary period and completely out of date, still it has become one of the most popular works of the French stage because of the contemporary message of beauty going beyond the external forms of the human being..
This English language adaptation we can see in Prescott, is the work of the very talented Deborah McAndrew. It brings the text into the ruggedness of the 20th Century while maintaining the feeling of 17th century language, quite a feat as the play takes place among the rough young cadets from Gascony , , the young Musketeers in training, often in competition with the regiments of Cardinal Richelieu, all the material that inspired the novels of Alexandre Dumas .
The play is thus a highly stylized period piece that depends on a conscious sense of hightened theatricality which includes the fighting and drinking and all the masculine fun of the palace guards that lit up the prerevolutionary monarchy. The performance rhythms have to keep bubbling away as they all show off their linguistic prowess to capture the nature of this stylistic jewel of 17th century France while making it sound perfectly plausible in our time.
Richard Sheridan Willis who is also the artistic director of the Saint Lawrence Shakespeare Festival lives up to the reputation of the play and brings much self assurance and seductive ease to this very demanding role. He was a pleasure to watch mainly because he appeared to be in a class all by himself.
The influence of his artistic energy was clearly exceptional in many scenes where he had tightly charged dialogues and monologues involving other characters. The first confrontation between Valvert (the rather dashing but breathless Zach Council) who is a friend of Cyrano’s enemy the hated actor Montfleury ‘ , and Cyrano himself who defends his nose with a ferocious poetic energy recounts how one might have the imagination to insult him correctly..before the excellent swordsman (all perfectly choreographed by Council himself) runs him through. It was witty, it was highpowered, it destroyed the overconfident dandy Valvert (Council) and brought our attention to the great charm of this lead and the magnificent dramaturgy of the playwright and the translator.
In a totally different tone, the final moments of the play plunged us into pathos that worked immediately because the delicate words spoken by the actor corresponded to the seductive writing of the poet that we had heard earlier and the sudden discovery of the true author of those love letters is very moving. Richard Sheridan Willis captures the immense tragedy to such an extent that we fall deeply under the spell of this actor, whose large nose suddenly evaporates into the magic of the performance. At that final moment, director Conrad Nelson, introduced the religious voices of the church choir, drawing Cyrano back into the fold, transforming his outrageous behaviour into a form of attractive energy, even maintaining he greatness as he clings to his defining behaviour as the greatly attractive swordsman , even as he was leaving this earth. Clearly , the role highlighted the lead actor of course but still, It was Richard Sheridan Willis’ play all the way.
The great ease of Sheridan Willis on stage did much to bring out even the slightest weaknesses of the other performers. Catherine Rainville, a beautiful and sprightly presence as the captivating Roxane would do well to give us the impression she is listening more closely to what those around her are saying. She often does not seem to know what to do if she is not talking, even though listening is also a great art and can bring much to a performance. On the other hand, Zach Council is a long standing comic presence who had multiple character roles that kept him within his traditional comic style performances and he always was right on the mark.
The soldiers suffering great hunger at the battle of Arras under siege by the Spanish, would have us believe that they are all starving to death but we felt none of that. In fact it was a rather light-hearted war with puffs of hissing smoke from canon fire and barely any noise to the extent that crossing enemy lines, as many of he characters did , appeared to be far from dangerous. And although Christian (Jesse Nerenberg) did his best, he lacked so much passion especially as he was taunting Cyrano.
More serious was the rather bland performance by Quincy Armorer as the evil, lascivious Comte de Guiche who was rather sweet and not the lascivious womanizer he is reputed to be. Armorer is an excellent actor who speaks his roles beautifully and his career appears to be booming in Montreal and elsewhere in Canada but here he appeared to be worn out. All the energy seemed to have run out of these actors, except for Cyrano who just gobbled up the stage.Perhaps one could blame the heat because this was a matinee and the sun at 2pm in the afternoon is very difficult to take…
Liam Lynch as the musician and the detested actor Monfleury did not make the grade either. Weak music, weak singing and a terribly boring Monfleury who is supposed to be overstuffed with his own acting skills which annoys Cyrano, appeared lacking in any spirit, a fellow who made no impression at all. On the other hand Tamara Brown and, Kim Nelson as nuns, male cadets and nannies , were both very strong presences in the play. They could have played more important roles really with their strong voices and their French accents which they maintained throughout, especially Kim Nelson. They created excellent on stage examples of the spoken word, comparable to that of Cyrano.
As for the others, sliding from British English to Canadian English, to attempts at pronouncing French with heavy British accents was silly and the director might have harmonized such slippery mixtures which emphasized the non-professional natures of many of these performers and gave the impression the actors had no control over their own speech. Accents might not have been a problem if everyone just used his or her own normal accent. This would then be a multilingual cast. Something typical in present day Canada…
Graham Price’s set design was rather heavy and dark but it worked well with the needs of the performance and as always, Vanessa Imeson’s costumes are always a perfectly appropriate.
A word to those who like matinees. Do try to arrive at the matinee.s before 1pm so you can sit under a parasol, one of those huge a umbrellas. The shade is absolutely necessary to enjoy the event..and they unfortunately do not have very many umbrellas available during the afternoon.
For tickets and times contact 613.925.5788
Cyrano de Bergerac plays in the Kinsmen Amphitheatre
This is a production of the St. Lawrence Shakespeare Festival in Prescott
Artistic director Richard Sheridan Willis
General Manager James Richardson
Director Conrad Nelson
Set design Graham Price
Musical director Liam Lynch
Fight director /captain and prosthetic designer Zach Council
Costumes Vanessa Imeson
Cast de Guiche Quincy Armorer
Le Bret, Sister Martha Tamara Brown
Valvert Zach Council
Lignière, Monfleury LIam Lynch
Bellerose, Duenna Kim Nelson
Christian Jesse Nerenberg
Catherine Rainville Roxane
Richard Sheridan Willis Cyrano
Sophia Swettenham Buffet Girl, Sister Claire, Cadet etc.