This production uses a new translation by Andrew Upton and Marion Potts, which has been adapted further by Upton. He directs Cyrano de Bergerac with style, employing a spectacular design by Gabriela Tylesova, and casting David Wenham, the thinking woman's crumpet, in the title role. Simon Phillips has a flair for this sort of play, which is light without being insubstantial I fondly remember his 1989 production of The Importance of Being Earnest, with an Aubrey Beardsley-derived set and a performance of memorable loathing from Frank Thring.
It permits him to make rude jokes about practically everyone in classical French literature, from Molière to the now (it seems deservedly) obscure Balthazar Baro, and to parody theatre itself with a fond mercilessness peculiar to its practitioners. Rostand took theatrical conventions that in 1897 were already two centuries old and whipped them into a delectable new froth. It was a period piece when it was written, set in a fantasia of 17th century Paris. Cyrano de Bergerac is about the artifice of theatre at least as much as it's about the tragedy of having a huge honker. This is a little like attacking King Lear because it's a bit depressing. George Bernard Shaw once contemptuously dismissed Cyrano de Bergerac as mere "pasteboard".
Melbourne Theatre Company at the Arts Centre Playhouse until April 2. With David Wenham, Bob Hornery, Asher Keddie, Alex Menglet, David Lyons, Gerry Connolly, Carita Farrer, Hayden Spencer, Stephen Ballantyne, Adam Zwar, Russell Fletcher and Jay Bowen. Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand, translated by Marion Potts and Andrew Upton, directed by Simon Phillips, design by Gabriela Tylesova.
0 kommentar(er)
