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Whos the man we always back?
Who can take the fucking flak?
Who is it that the twats attack?
There certainly isnt a rapier or a feathery hat in sight, though there arereamsof verse.
Yes, well, in the sense that fire can be considered a new version of wood.
It takes nearly three hours, but thisCyranostill feels compact and almost claustrophobically compressed.
And in this word-crazy scrum, a phenomenal McAvoy goes faster and fiercer than anybody.
Were all so familiar with Cyrano we take the nose on faith McAvoy doesnt wear one.
But thats not to say the actor hasnt altered his body for the part.
Under his black T-shirt, he has the high shoulders and the head-down movement of a bull.
The Jamie Lloyd Companys production was the pride of London in 2019.
Everything is flat and frontal.
Rhyming verse is a discipline, so Lloyd meets it with control.
Some of this hypermanagement struck me as mannered, but visually and sonically, the production is perfect.
Costume and set designer Soutra Gilmours character touches are light but meaningful.
She and lighting designer Jon Clark make it starkly effective.
Theres a lot of darkness here, actually.
The experience feels even more painful than it did three years ago.
McAvoy, giving a performance Ill remember for the rest of my life, has hardened, too.
He and Crimp and Lloyd see Cyranos bargains as ones he cant undo.
I need them, Cyrano tells his friend Le Bret about the people he has antagonized.
I need that hate / need them to isolate / me so that I can create.
There are no stars left in this productions eyes.
Loneliness has no value.
The elephant in the theater is, of course, McAvoys beauty.
What does it mean to have donethatsort of work for a play about male insecurity?
One of Rostands deeper mysteries is Cyranos mixture of self-punishing integrity and self-aggrandizing style what he calls his panache.
For all the plays pages of verse, no one can quite get to the bottom of it.
McAvoy proposes his own explanation of panache, but its not a thing he can say in words.
Its hard to quote it, and you cant write it down.
Youll see it, though, I promise.
His body is the pen; his body is the rhyme and meter, too.
Cyrano de Bergeracis at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
