Nose for a compelling romance
Thuy On
February 25, 2005

Cyrano de Bergerac
By Edmond Rostand. Melbourne Theatre Company. Arts Centre, Playhouse, Wednesday February 23. Tickets: $15-$66.50. 
Bookings: 1300 136 166. Until April 2.

FIRST brought to the stage in 1897, Edmond Rostand's drama about wit, unrequited love, self-sacrifice, gallantry and 
a gargantuan nose remains irresistibly compelling in this MTC production. 

The story of Cyrano de Bergerac (David Wenham), the poet-soldier with the unfortunate profile who woos the beautiful 
Roxane (Asher Keddie) on behalf of his friend Christian (David Lyons), still has the power to seduce theaudience. 

Andrew Upton's adaptation is a reverent one; keeping the original location and setting, but modernising the free verse, 
the straight dialogue and the rhyming couplets to paint the tale of a man whose appearance dooms him to remain the prompter 
in the shadows, the true but vicarious lover. 

Adept at making friends and enemies alike with his swaggering bluster, Cyrano is a deeply romantic character, both 
linguistically and physically dextrous; with a wit as sharp as his rapier. 

This is a man who improvises ballads while he duels, who sneaks through enemy lines at dawn to deliver love letters. 
The age-old dialectic between inner and outer beauty is dramatised when Cyrano falls in love with Roxane, who in turn 
is bewitched by Christian. 

When brains and brawn contrive to win Roxane's heart, the result is deeply affecting and entertaining theatre. 

The success of this play rests largely on the lead character's interpretation of the word "panache" and Wenham was a 
perfect incarnation of the lovelorn hero. Onstage for nearly the entire five acts, and almost unrecognisable with his 
prosthetic proboscis, long brown tresses and moustache, his presence was mesmerising. 

Hand-picked by director Simon Phillips to play literature's most passionate hero, a man "who looks like a circus act 
but is stuffed full of poetry", Wenham moved deftly between silken words and acerbic ripostes and delivered a performance 
of intense conviction. 

Phillips increased the humour quota in this tragic romance by making all the support cast caricatures, particularly 
the beribboned and bewigged sycophants and officials whose egos Cyrano delighted in deflating. 

Gerry Connolly, Russell Fletcher and Bob Hornery were part of the cast of 13 who played multiple characters and crowded 
the stage in a swirl of colour andmovement. 

Lyons made an assured MTC debut as tongue-tied Christian, a boy who's as handsome as he's gormless, and Keddie was also 
impressive in her portrayal of Roxane, the spirited heroine who mistook shallowness for depth. 

This was flamboyant, epic theatre, where sword fights and battle scenes, embellished tales and ridiculous costumes, wounded 
pride and slain bodies kept the action moving apace. 
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