York Theatre Royal – 11 April 2017. Reviewed by Marcus Richardson
Cyrano a classic tale of love war and poetry. The play set in France during the 1600s and follows an amazing swords man, a brilliant poet and witty charmer; but there is one large problem, very large problem. His nose. The comic play takes us on a journey with the whole play in verse.
The acting style has to be naturalistic even if the script adds this poetic vibe. The actor who played Cyrano, Christian Walker was the prime of performance with the script, the wit of Cyrano certainly came out with a fiery passion, working with poetry can be very hard and if you mess a line the whole flow can fall apart but thankfully he commanded the script and stole the performance. The ever so beautiful but sturdy Roxanne played by Sharon Singh, when she first spoke I was surprised by her accent as it was a thick Scottish and I was caught of guard as most of the other actors had Yorkshire accent, however after the first few seconds I got used to her accent and she captures the independent but elegant perfectly.
The stage was decorated with Lunar Diagrams and such, due to the simplicity of the stage, scene changes were quick and effective on of the best scene changes was into the bakery as loads of pastry and bread filled the stage which didn’t take time to put on and take off, in the second act war breaks out and the transition was just as seamless as all the other changes even though there was a lot to change, and it was the whole cast in charge of doing the changes so well done to one and all for their amazing acting and stage use, the actors played instruments and sung during the scenes and their changes this was done really well and was so effective in moving the play along.
This is second time I’ve seen the play, and it’s my most favourite script capturing the hilarious wittiness that I love to watch, and read. I loved what they did to the script and I have to lower my expectations for the play. If you can please go and see this production of Cyrano as you won’t be disappointed with the whole package of the play.