This modern musical take on Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac brings the tale of unrequited love up to date. This time the handicap to love is not a large proboscis but diminutive stature and actor Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones) brings his innate charm and sly intelligence to full fruition in the lead role.
Dinklage’s singing voice while being slight is buttressed by interesting lyrics and a heartfelt delivery. Elsewhere female lead Haley Bennett as Roxanne has a fine singing voice as does Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Christian, who is competing for Roxanne’s heart. Ben Mendelsohn is also interesting as De Guiche, who gets to get his Goth on via a deep resonant voice.
With a backdrop of war and the struggle of the class system breaking into song at any moment is handled well by understating the musical number and featuring mostly voice and not over the top instrumentation, a Broadway play this is not.
Oddly cadenced but beguiling nonetheless, Cyrano retells the classic story with a view to introducing it to a new audience. It’s satisfying in its suspension of reality and the ease of getting lost in the emotion of it all. Even with its less than happy ending, it is still an entertaining feature.
Rob Hudson
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