Cyrano de Bergerac on Broadway Reviews

t's a safe bet, even at this early stage, that [Hodge will] collect another Tony nod for his effort. Mind you, the leading man benefits from a superb supporting cast, directed with blazing vigor by Hodge's fellow Brit Jamie Lloyd, and from Ranjit Bolt's witty, earthy translation, also a U.K. import.

I suppose it’s possible that “Cyrano” traditionalists will not be as taken with Lloyd’s interpretation as I was. Nevertheless, I would urge everyone to check out Roundabout Theatre Company’s thoughtful, committed production.

Cyrano de Bergerac will always be Cyrano — that is to say, you can't expect new revelations from Edmond Rostand's often exhausting, bloated 1897 play itself. In the Roundabout Theatre Company's new Broadway production, it's still the same sing-songy piece about a tragic, weird love story set in an opulent, war-torn 17th-century France.

Taken on its own, "Cyrano de Bergerac" is an extremely entertaining play, and this production allows the audience to enjoy it. If not great or memorable, it's good, and very solid.

his gale force has a name, Douglas Hodge, and it is inhabiting, enlivening and almost exploding the title character...Mr. Hodge is as light and oxygenating as air, even as the pure physical impact of his performance sets you reeling. Still, though I hate to say it, that old ennui crept up on me whenever Mr. Hodge wasn’t onstage. Mercifully, that’s only a small fraction of the production.

Hodge is an enormous talent, and he does excellent work, but it does sometimes look like work.

Douglas Hodge is a kind and rather rough-hewn Cyrano. Alas, in most other ways, this is a busy, generic production...Page goes so far beyond the cardboard outlines of this villain that we wish the play were about Cyrano and him. The translation by Ranjit Bolt is unpleasantly fixed on exclamations of excrement. For a play about loving words and a hero for whom bad poetry is a fighting offense, this just feels wrong.

Credit helmer Jamie Lloyd with an original concept for staging Rostand's 19th-century romantic drama. Ditching the affected manners, elaborate court dress, and elegant verse readings associated with classic presentations of this French masterpiece, the Brit director portrays Cyrano as a swashbuckling military leader with the same lusty appetites as his soldiers -- who happen to enjoy a good poetry contest as much as a tavern brawl. But a lack of restraint spoils the fun, making it all seem too big (Cyrano's honker), too much (stomping on tables), and over the top (Douglas Hodge's star turn).

Despite a wonderfully yeasty Hodge, an always welcome Patrick Page and a lovely Clemence Poesy as Roxane, this "Cyrano" often lumbers over its 2 hours and 45 minutes, tending to get bogged down in the florid, repetitive verse...This production may be a tad overdone, overstuffed and overwrought at times, but it has something that Cyrano himself considered one of the most important things in the world. It has panache.

While Hodge attacks the title role with formidable energy and inventiveness, his virtuosic display muffles the poetry of the play. The same goes in general for the pedal-to-the-metal approach of Jamie Lloyd’s unevenly cast production...Page’s handle on the language is impeccable and effortless, something that can’t be said for all other aspects of this revival.

Mr. Hodge gets what "Cyrano" is all about, and in its quiet moments his performance is deeply moving—but there aren't enough of them. Not only is Jamie Lloyd's staging as noisy as a concert by a band of jackhammers, but the Roundabout's production makes use of a boisterous new rhyming translation by Ranjit Bolt that updates the play's language to inconsistent effect. Mr. Bolt has salted Rostand's couplets with anachronistic colloquialisms like "No can do" and "I'll eat my hat," and he lacks the easy virtuosity necessary to charge them with the sparkling flair that comes so naturally to Cyrano.

Edmond Rostand's 1897 sentimental fairy tale romance "Cyrano de Bergerac" is not so much a great play as it is a durable star vehicle for a skilled actor who can handle rhymed verse, swordplay and a giant prosthetic nose...The Roundabout Theatre Company's new production proves to be not as fortunate in its casting of Douglas Hodge, an indulgent English actor.

With his blank expression framed by a stringy wig and an unflattering black ensemble that makes him appear slightly paunchy and derelict, Douglas Hodge brings to Broadway an unprecedented interpretation of the courtly Cyrano de Bergerac as frat boy, in a production that could be an episode of TV’s “Arrested Development.”