Cryano Explodes with Passion at BAM

Wow. 

Cyrano de Bergerac is playing at BAM and it is beautifully intense and poetic. As Cryano, James McAvoy burns with a heat that enflames the neutral palette on stage. Cyrano de Bergerac is acted in "spoken word prose". That is my best description of it. Cyrano has a cadence, rhythm, and language all its own. Translated from the French, with also had a unique cadence in 1890s, the dialog reinforces Cryano’s love of language, while also distancing him from other characters in the play. Like Shakespeare, the dive into a new speech pattern takes a bit of adjustment but is then it is captivating. 

As Cyrano, James McAvoy is mesmerizing and impossible to ignore. He strides the stage demanding attention and receiving it. He dominates whether sitting, standing, or fighting. 

James McAvoy, intimidating and commanding as Cryano

Nearly all of us know the outlines of the story, Cyrano de Bergerac is in love with the fair Roxanne, but she is infatuated with another, Christian. Roxanne is blind to Cryano’s affections because they have been friends from youth. Addtionally, Cryano describes that no one could love him, nor even see him fully due to his expansive nose. His nose is a sight to behold as described and joked about. In this play Cryano’s nose, his giant protuberance, his defining feature is described, but not depicted on McAvoy’s face.

Roxanne, Cryano’s cousin comes to him with tales of love. Cryano allows himself to believe the target might be himself. He is silently crushed when Roxanne revels that target is not Cryano but is Christian, a youthful handsome man. Not only is Roxanne infatuated with Christian, but she implores Cryano to take care of him in the military they both are part of. 

Roxanne (played wonderfully by Evelyn Miller) is the light of warmth and charm. It is easy to understand Cryano’s love. Like Cryano she is alsot in love with language and words. She entreats Cryano to have Christine write her letters of love. But Christine is at sea using words to describe anything. And so Cryano writes Christine’s letters to make Roxanne happy.

Roxane (Evelyn Miller) and Cyrano

The famous scene where Cryano speaks for Christine to Roxanne is carried out with precision and emotion. The scene plays out in a series of musical chairs allowing separate conversations to happen on the same stage. Eben Figueiredo is Christian - the handsome but witless suitor of Roxanne. His love perhaps not less full than Cryano’s, but he is useless in documenting it in a way Roxanne can appreciate.

But rich and powerful De Guiche (a slimy Ton Edden) desires Roxanne as well. Seeing Christine’s love for Roxanne as a block to his own salacious intentions, he sends Christine (and Cryano) off to war. Where Cryano promises to Roxanne that he will get Christine to write every day. Letters that he writes, and that further inflame her love.

War means tragedy. And tragedy in this case means that Christine falls in battle. Christine’s early death is amplified by his (actually Cryano’s) letters and dooms Roxanne to live alone with his memory. Tragedy also means that Cryano does not reveal his actions or intents until it is too late.

Cryano and Christine (Eben Figueiredo)

This new version is by Martin Crimp and directed by Jamie Lloyd. I have never seen the original or a recent version, but I was captivated by this Cryano de Bergerac. I’m afraid I have be spoiled and will never see a different version that is this spellbinding.

Cryano de Bergerac | Playwright: Edmond Rostand, with new version by Martin Camp | Director: Jamie Lloyd | Cast:
James McAvoy, Evelyn Miller, Eben Figueiredo, Michele Austin, Veneeka Dadhria, Adam Best and Nari Blair-Mangat

website

Upcoming at BAM

Normally I don't highlight upcoming film, but this is at BAM  - and I love this movie.
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If you haven't seen Holiday, then you must.  It is in the mold of The Philadelphia Story, which followed it by a year or two.  But Holiday was a flop at the box office.  In it, Cary Grant is a young man who just did well in finance.  He has proposed to a rich society girl, and all appears to be on track.
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But the he meets the girl's sister, an atypical rich girl who isn't looking for money played by Katherine Hepburn.  Their attraction is obvious, but seems star-crossed since Cary Grant is engaged to her sister.
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It is an indictment against the class system of the 30's and of success for success' sake.  It went against the grain so much, that it's failure caused Hepburn to be declared box office poison.  The Philadelphia Story was made only after Miss Hepburn purchased the rights herself and insisted on being in the movie.
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Holiday is not only a fun film, but an interesting one.  Go see it.
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Upcoming: Simon Callow @ BAM

Being Shakespeare

Part of the 2012 Winter/Spring Season

Apr 4—7 & 10—14, 2012 at 7:30pm
Apr 8, 2012 at 3pm

A new play by Jonathan Bate
Directed by Tom Cairns

“Callow devours Shakespeare’s life story and intoxicates us with his language” —Daily Mail (UK)

An aging Lear, disintegrating with his kingdom. A cryptic Ophelia, driven mad by madness. Hamlet, hell-bent on revenge. All of them came from the brain of Shakespeare, but what do we know about the Bard himself? In a tour-de-force performance, veteran actor Simon Callow (the original Roman Mozart in Amadeus on stage, the film Shakespeare in Love) assumes the daunting challenge of illuminating the man behind the roles in this utterly compelling one-man play by preeminent Shakespeare biographer Jonathan Bate, directed and designed by Tom Cairns. Channeling Macbeth and Henry V here, musing over Shakespeare’s childhood there, Callow leaps from anecdote to soliloquy, using the famous Seven Ages of Man speech from As You Like It as his guide to consider how a glovemaker’s son could have gone on to write the world.

BAM Harvey Theater

Upcoming: The Caretaker comes to BAM with Jonathan Pryce

If you've never seen The Caretaker, but love either Harold Pinter or Jonathan Pryce, here is the show for you.  BAM does amazing work. (from the BAM Website)
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The Caretaker

Part of the 2012 Winter/Spring Season

May 3—Jun 17, 2012 (click on Performance Schedule tab above for details)

By Harold Pinter
Directed by Christopher Morahan
Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse/Theatre Royal Bath

“Pryce gives a first-rate performance that gradually reveals the viper lurking underneath the vagrant” —The Guardian (UK)

Jonathan Pryce—two-time Tony and Olivier Award winner (Miss Saigon, Hamlet) and film actor (Brazil, Pirates of the Caribbean)—leads a compelling cast in this major revival of Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker. This superb production by Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse/Theatre Royal Bath won glowing reviews in London and Liverpool for its penetrating new take on the play—and for Pryce’s tour-de-force performance as a repellant, darkly funny, and deeply human Davies.

A pair of working-class brothers allows a homeless man to stay in their decrepit London flat, an act of compassion that sparks a cycle of cruelties, delusions, and shifting loyalties in a desperate struggle over territory. Pinter’s first great success, this work powerfully displays his sharp intelligence, masterful and spare use of language, and uncompromising exploration of life’s menace and comedy.

BAM Harvey Theater
Run time: 2hrs 30min with intermission
Season ticket price*: $20—80 (May 10—27 only)
Full price*: $25—100