Working with the team that brought together his magnificent Pinter productions, including Gilmour, lighting designer Jon Clark and Ben and Max Ringham on sound, Lloyd reveals breathtaking confidence and style. This ties together the shift from the high comedy of the first act to the dark scenes of the second, where Cyrano and Christian are facing death. The power of Crimp's translation – funny, fluid, punchy, romantic – is that it makes you hear Cyrano's dazzling charisma while simultaneously helping you understand that this play is not a simple love story but a rousing defence of words themselves, their power to change things, their role in a society's freedom. He holds us, as well as Roxane, in the palm of his hand. McAvoy's voice is like honey, drawing you in, his eyes flashing. I've seen it in the film with Steve Martin') to a full expression of his thwarted passion. Talking quietly and intently – in Christian's voice – he seduces us as well as her, moving from an improvised aside ('Trust me, this will work.

In the magnificent wooing scene, for example, where Cyrano propositions Roxane on behalf of Christian, the actors sit on a row of chairs, only McAvoy facing the audience. This invitation to suspend disbelief, to engage yourself in an active act of listening and imagination is the tightrope that Lloyd and his team walk: as they tell the story of how ugly but brilliant Cyrano uses the power of his words to win the heart of the beautiful Roxanne on behalf of the conventionally handsome but unfortunately dim Christian, the actors often gaze out from the stage, rather than looking at each other.

When he swaggers into view, his nose is notably normal the large appendage which disfigures Cyrano and which has been endlessly described before his entrance, has to be imagined not seen. It announces its intentions from the very first moment when the date 1640 is stamped above the stage, just as an effortlessly diverse 21st century cast appear, holding microphones, wearing everyday clothes, and telling the story in a form of poetry that is close to rap, complete with beatboxer.įor a long time, McAvoy's Cyrano remains hidden, sitting at the back of Soutra Gilmour's bare-bones set, which has steps rising at the rear, and a mirror in the centre reflecting the action and the thoughts of characters who sit facing it. A revival of Edmond Rostand's 19th century verse drama about the legendary 17th century poet and fighter Cyrano de Bergerac doesn't, on paper, look like the kind of evening that will make you want to punch the air, even if it does star the electrifying James McAvoy.īut Jamie Lloyd's new production, working from a free translation by Martin Crimp, is really something else: funny, thrilling and deeply moving. A play can knock your socks off when you least expect it.

Cyrano de bergerac martin crimp