Presented by: The University of Adelaide Theatre Guild Student Union
Reviewed: 9 December, 2022
Climbing roses twine around what passes for a proscenium in the Little Theatre. On stage, two long wooden benches; one holds an assortment of breads, while the other has trays of fruit and bunches of flowers. The mezzanine stage is bucolic, with potted plants, balustrade and bench. Yes, this show is about Cyrano de Bergerac… but not as we know it, Jim. Try not to worry about M. Rostand and 17th century France, and you’ll have fun.
Chicago-based playwright and actor Michael P. Dalberg wrote this adaptation of the original story for his local theatre company, Theatre Above the Law. Originally staged in 2018, it’s an artefact of the #metoo movement, with swashbuckling soldier Cyrano here an AFAB (assigned female at birth) with pronounced sapphic preferences.
A quick bird’s-eye-view: Cyrano is smart, capable, enterprising, and convinced that they look ugly. Cyrano fancies happily hetero AFAB Roxanne. So do dim-but-cute AMABs (go on, work it out) Christian Prewitt, and Armand Montfleury de Guiche, captain of Cyrano and Christian’s regiment and all-round slimeball. Donna LeBret, AFAB and boulangère, is Cyrano’s best friend… and wouldn’t mind an even closer relationship. Ligniere, sardonic general factotum, but of a swarm of word-plays, and plot facilitators, pops in and out of the action all night.
Although Dalberg’s script needs tightening and could do with a dab of dramaturgy, Daniella Chiarolli’s direction puts audience entertainment at the top of her list. As well as making their directorial debut, Daniella has also covered the unexpected loss of a cast member by stepping into the role of Donna LeBret, bringing stability, clear intentions and comic energy to their performance. Directorially, Chiarolli has done very well indeed; if they could have goaded their actors into picking up the pace of cues, comic elements of this piece would have been sharper and more sparkly. Leisurely scene changes, undertaken in semi-darkness, caused more longueurs.
As Roxanne, the woman adored by Cyrano, Christian and Montfleury, Taylor Fernandez’s character oscillates between practical pragmatist and simpering object-of-affection.
Fernandez is steady, reliable and expressive, although her vocal energy tends to tail off at the ends of phrases. Oswin Kwan, that affable chap from Significant Other, portrays the gormless Christian with good-humoured glee. Ligniere, as played by Naomi Lawson, is a perky androgynous force, whose waspish satirical contributions are designed to add edge to this musketeering romcom. Lawson’s presence is lively, but her articulation is not, and sadly some of Dalberg’s zingers hit the backcloth instead of the audience.
Karma Duffield plays Montfleury with much vigour and the best articulatory clarity of the cast. He manages a neat amalgam of authority and sleaze; this achievement is all the more praiseworthy because he does it whilst clad in a tailcoat made of diaphanous pale orange fabric.
And so to Cyrano, eponymous star of the show, played to the hilt by a swaggering Imogen Deller-Evans. They enter, yelling “Hold, villain!”, brandishing a baguette and threatening Ligniere. (Note: much bread is harmed in the making of this performance.) Deller-Evans, hair pulled back severely into a ponytail, clad in androgynous gear intimating soldiery, is busy all night. Early in the performance, Cyrano riffs at length about having a nose of great length and consequently feeling ugly. Their nose looks OK to us – actor Deller-Evans has a perfectly splendid one. We thus trudge across the bridge created by this cognitive dissonance to ponder that “ugliness is in the eye of the beholder”. While Cyrano does some set-piece sword-play (never with a weapon more substantial than a baguette) and the expected balcony scene (as hapless Christian’s mouthpiece), the vulnerability and touchiness of Deller-Evans’ character generally puts people off-balance. Deller-Evans keeps up the energy all night, but their articulatory clarity suffers. We miss some of Dalberg’s witty repartee. At least Cyrano never lets the pace sag.
Would it be an advantage for audience members to be familiar with the 1897 source text? Not really. This piece is all about fun, passion and gender parity. Sometimes, because cues were sluggish, there were interminable gaps between ideas where there should have been witty cascades. Fittingly, some lighting cues were positively listless. But Chiarolli’s direction enables this ensemble of six actors (with vastly different levels of skill and experience) to work together to bring us an entertaining and thought-provoking twist on a classic story.
Reviewed by: Pat H. Wilson
Venue: The Little Theatre
Season: Season ended
Duration: 2 hours (including interval)
