Virginia Gay

Southbank Centre, Melbourne Theatre Company After being scuppered by a snap lockdown in 2021, Gay's highly anticipated take on Cyrano turns out to have been ...

Viewed with a modern eye, in the age of catfishing, gaslighting and emotional abuse, Cyrano’s deception is especially troubling. The confetti and glitter-soaked finale, with its neat, bow-on-top conclusion, may irritate purists expecting a more rigid adherence to Rostand’s text. Still, the visual absence of the schnoz means it becomes more of a metaphor for the stifling of queer desire, or of simply building an emotional wall, a refusal to let love in. The stage is, well, a stage: Elizabeth Gadsby and Jo Briscoe’s simple set design situates the action in the back of a theatre. The object of Cyrano’s affections, Roxanne (Tuuli Narkle), has her eye on the ultimate himbo, Yan (Claude Jabbour); Yan’s body with Cyrano’s mind and wit might just be Roxanne’s perfect match. It manages to be meta without being annoying, celebrating the return of live performance (particularly meaningful for this production) while also quite literally constructing, and therefore deconstructing, the tropes of the story.