by Edmond Rostand adapted by Martin Crimp
seen by live streaming from the Playhouse Theatre on 20 February 2020
Jamie Lloyd directs James McAvoy in the title role, with Anita-Joy Uwajeh as Roxane, Eben Figueiredo as Christian and Tom Edden as De Guiche, in a production designed by Soutra Gilmour and lit by Jon Clark.
Edmond Rostand's 1897 play sought to re-intorduce poetry and the idea of romantic heroism to a theatre world which he saw as bedevilled by too much naturalism. Traditionally this has inspired productions revelling in lush seventeenth-century costumes and swaggering panache, with Cyrano, the main character, a self-defined misfit in an age where physical attractiveness is held to be essential in the world of love.
