Cyrano de Bergerac is drawing to the end. What we see on the old-fashioned proscenium of the Royal’s stage is what we have been looking at since the opening: an image combining elements of an ancient gymnasium and a rough-and-ready auditorium (Jean Chan’s design). Some half-dozen rows of raked seating look down on to the forestage; behind these, wooden wall bars striate a cyclorama suffused with blue fading to black, and sparkled with tiny lights to suggest stars (Tim Lutkin’s lighting). From these have been conjured a theatre, a garden, a battlefield.
This final scene is set in a convent – indicated by the sound of bells (Alasdair Mcrae’s music) and by the black cloths members of the ensemble are wrapping over the fencing outfits they have been wearing as base costumes throughout the action. Here staggers Cyrano – the 17th-century writer, fighter, protuberant proboscis-ed, self-abnegating lover. There stands Roxane, finally realising that it was he, not the handsome cavalier, Christian, who crafted the sweet, soul exposing phrases that ravished her heart.
Chris Jared’s Christian is not just appropriately dashing, he also suggests the pain of a character who cannot find expression for his gentler thoughts and feelings, while Cath Whitefield definitively redeems the term “blue-stocking” for intelligent womanhood with her sprightly, brisk and emotionally nuanced performance. Both perfectly balance Nigel Barrett’s powerful Cyrano – seemingly fired by elemental energies, equally credible as swashbuckling swordsman and tender, passionate (occasionally rapping) poet.
The shifting relationship between fiction and reality, negotiated through language, is at the core of Edmond Rostand’s 1897 heroic comedy (in Anthony Burgess’s virile, pacy, luscious 1971 translation). This highly theatrical co-production between Royal and Derngate and Northern Stage, as directed by Lorne Campbell, embodies it with panache.
• At the Royal and Derngate, Northhampton, until 25 April; transfers to the Northern Stage, Newcastle, 29 April to 5 May
