Review Roundup: CYRANO DE BERGERAC Starring James McAvoy Opens at BAM

The Brooklyn Academy of Music is presenting Jamie Lloyd's bold, Olivier-winning revival of Cyrano de Bergerac-written by Edmond Rostand and freely adapted by Martin Crimp-at the BAM Harvey Theater from Apr 5-May 22. Read the reviews!

McAvoy leads a superb ensemble in this theatrical tour-de-force that captures timeless passion through spoken word, contemporary poetry, and raw physicality. Cyrano seduces in raps and rhymes, using his linguistic brilliance to help another man win the heart of his one true love-above all-championing his own unbridled love for words.

Jesse Green, The New York Times: Not I: McAvoy's neck-tingling burr, and all the other sounds made by the wonderfully diverse cast, including Michele Austin as the regendered Ragueneau and Vaneeka Dadhria as the bubbly beatboxer, reopened my ears to a story I knew too well. If I was stopped now and then by Crimp's more mystifying conceits - a Borscht Belt envoi? - I spent most of the production's swift two acts fully engaged in its humor, pathos and fury.

Caroline McGinn, Time Out New York: And as for the nose? No Gerard Depardieu-style extensions here. This Cyrano's "ugliness" is a metaphor or maybe even an artist's blessing and curse. It makes him a monster but also special. When invited to sell out and become a published playwright, he says he needs to "isolate me so I can create." Which brings us to another crucial point: Adapter Martin Crimp, a bleak, formally experimental playwright-who is, as they say, big in Germany-has, in his sixties, written an absolute banger in his startling adaptation of Rostand. It's a pleasure to see it brought back to life by McAvoy and company following its inaugural 2019 run and short recent stops in the West End and Glasgow. If this is the sound of middle-aged white guys rapping, then maybe more of them should give it a go.

Melissa Rose Bernardo, New York Stage Review: And it's not only the physical production that's stripped down. Lloyd stages many of the scenes with the actors facing front-almost concert-style-with military-precision blocking. It's low-key and unfussy, and puts the spotlight squarely on the verse. (The very free, and very accessible, adaptation of Rostand's text is by playwright Martin Crimp.) In case you were confused about the star of the show, just read the phrase on the back wall: "I love words, that's all."

David Cote, Observer: A traditional staging of Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac (1897) would normally bristle with weapons: swords on every Frenchman's hip, then later rifles and deadly cannon as they march to repel Spanish invaders in Arras. The current, modish version at BAM lacks dangerous hardware-if you don't count the microphones that characters clutch and spit rhymes into. Sleekly minimal, with maximal emotional punch, director Jamie Lloyd's Cyrano is a weaponless marvel of language.

Helen Shaw, Vulture: Some of this hypermanagement struck me as mannered, but visually and sonically, the production is perfect. Costume and set designer Soutra Gilmour's character touches are light but meaningful. She gives Roxane a silk bow to wear above her denim jumpsuit, and Christian's blue windbreaker has a camouflage pattern. Gilmour's set is also restrained but pointed: a plywood box, pale as paper, that in the second act becomes a set of stairs to nowhere. She and lighting designer Jon Clark make it starkly effective. After we've grown used to the shallow playing area, it feels almost like a special effect when we see how much black emptiness lies behind it. Just before the intermission, Christian and Cyrano go off to war, and as they walk off into that void, sound designers Ben and Max Ringham let us hear them murmur their farewells.

Nick Romano, Entertainment Weekly: At times, the writing feels too dense, becoming so wrapped up in its own love affair with language that it loses focus. Like Roxane, played here by a superb Evelyn Miller, the play itself sometimes loses sight of what's in front of it and becomes overly infatuated with the words - as if to recite a monologue for the sake of how cool it sounds. Still, the cast, led by a commanding McAvoy, leave the audience feeling impressed, as if they just witnessed a daring audible feat. You can't help it. The leading man masterfully wields such hefty dialogue, filled with complex rhythms that demand pointed and precise articulation. He's the soloist flaunting his prowess on stage and his cast members, with standout moments from Miller, Eben Figueiredo (Christian), and Michele Austin (Leila Ragueneau), are his orchestra.

Greg Evans, Deadline: Under Lloyd's direction and Crimp's pen, Cyrano is nothing so much as an alternately joyous and heartrending celebration of language - even the sword fights are rendered with nothing more than pointed words. Every line of dialogue, expertly delivered not only by McAvoy but a large and flawless ensemble, is either a delight, an arrow, or both, from era-defying comic asides ("This'll work," whispers Cyrano, "I've seen it in a film with Steve Martin") to a wrenchingly gorgeous profession of love rendered truthfully yet in deception.

Gillian Russo, New York Theatre Guide: Lloyd's Cyrano lives comfortably in anachronism. Classics purists will still find the rhyming-couplet poetry of Rostand's play intact, but Martin Crimp's freewheeling adaptation will also delight the Gen-Z crowd: 19th-century verse gives way to 21st-century spoken-word poetry and rap, including plenty of red-hot roasts. Think Hamilton, but faster (yes, it's possible) and with no accompaniment but a single beatboxer (Vaneeka Dadhria). To that point, Lloyd has stripped Cyrano de Bergerac down to its bare essentials: no props, no period sets or costumes, only a torrent of words. Lloyd's reasoning? Words are powerful, needing nothing else to make them effective when crafted well.

Dan Rubins, Slant Magazine: In Lloyd's restrained, seated staging, the famous balcony scene, where Cyrano steps in to speak for the stumbling Christian, swiftly erases Christian entirely. As soon as Cyrano takes over, Christian turns away in his chair, the warped love triangle condenses into a duet, and it's just two voices, finding love-and each other-in the words that fill the space between them.

Peter Marks, Washington Post: Beatbox, spoken word and "Cyrano de Bergerac" - what could go wrong? Well, in this instance, nothing does: A buff and blazing James McAvoy leads a fabulous British cast in a revivifying take on "Cyrano." With a whip-smart script by Martin Crimp, the production highlights a cool new vocabulary for Edmond Rostand's sentimental monument to love.

Juan A. Ramirez, Theatrely: Following a disappointing recent film adaptation, which garnished its well-known plot with flowery songs and period detail, I was not expecting a production of Cyrano de Bergerac to be the sexiest, most thrilling production of the season. Starring a breathtaking James McAvoy as its lovelorn lead, this British transfer from The Jamie Lloyd Company strips the material down to the essential-the sword by which everyone in its 1640 Paris must live or die: the power of words.