Cyrano de Bergerac

(Sydney Theatre Company)

This was my first viewing of Edmond Rostand's famous play 'Cyrano de Bergerac'; Sydney Theatre Company's season now concluded.

Cyrano is a fearsome swordsman with a gift for language which he uses to provide words of endearment for another man, Christian, to use in his courtship of Roxanne who Cyrano secretly fancies for himself. Cyrano believes Roxanne would never be interested in him because of his unfortunate appearance - namely that he has an enormous nose - but inevitably his strategies for advancing Christian's claims eventually out his suppressed desires.

Richard Roxburgh is quite swaggering as Cyrano which somewhat belies the lack of confidence in his looks. Chris Ryan on the other hand is an attractive enough Christian but portrays him as being rather  stupid which made me wonder why Roxanne would fall for him notwithstanding his fancy words.

Simple staging made for an interesting production.
★★★