| Clunky direction and unsubtle acting |
Theatr na n'Og |
| Theatr na n'Og- Cyrano , Riverfront, Newport , December 3, 2008 |
Pantomime has come early this year, courtesy of Theatr na N’Og.At least, the company’s touring version of Cyrano offers a taste of slapstick, swashbuckling, loud acting and sexual innuendo – the most unsubtle of which comes in the form of the hero’s excessively large nose, a prosthetic which looks more like… well, it seems to stick out even more when affixed to actor Rob Lane’s shaven head. That prominent hooter and its likeable owner is at the heart of Edmond Rostand’s Victorian French classic, a romantic story about gallantry and the essence of sexual attraction set two centuries earlier. It’s a tale that has resonances for our own time, with its emphasis on superficial beauty at the expense of sincerity and soul, and also translates well onto screen – Steve Martin and Gerard Depardieu having created memorable and different interpretations of this big-hearted larger-than-life swordsman-poet inhibited in amorous escapades by the size of his schnozzle. And Keiron Self’s adaptation should have been an enjoyable twentyfirst-century take on the old favourite. Mr Self is a clever playwright and a knowing adaptor, director Geinor Styles has in the past created some magical family shows, designer Carl Davies has proved he can create sophisticated sets, musical director Dyfan Jones has shown a sure touch with evocative scores – and there are usually reliable familiar faces in the cast like Phylip Harries and Mali Tudno Jones. But, sad to say, all that talent failed to get this ambitious show off the ground. Even at the end, a final scene where the dippy beauty Roxanne realises too late that it’s the nice man with the phallic proboscis who’s the one, just went on too long when it at looked as if it might at last touch us. The cast looked mis- or under-directed, either overzealous in a studentish sort of way or standing about the stage with nothing to do. Ms Styles allowed the wordy script, perhaps too reverential to Rostand’s original, to drag along so that only when Rob Lane’s energetic hero was centre stage did the thing hold our attention. There is a long catalogue of weaknesses and failings, from the lighting to the comic turns, from the clunky direction to the unsubtle acting, from the anachronistic tv-soap-inspired score to the unfunny dramatic pastiches, to make this more than disappointing. A stinker, indeed. |
Reviewed by: David Adams |
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