James McAvoy as Cyrano & Eben Figueiredo as Christian  NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE: CYRANO DE BERGERAC (2019) | part 1

James McAvoy as Cyrano NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE: CYRANO DE BERGERAC (2019)

for the next week I will obsessively researching everything about the Cyrano de Bergerac play that James is in,I loved it 

Always delighted to see a West End play… in a cinema in Poland 😉

Cyrano and Christian + physical touch "Is there a version of life where two men can live as one person?" National Theatre Live: Cyrano de Bergerac (2020)

Happy Birthday Scottish actor Mark Bonnar

Born November 19th 1968 in Edinburgh, Bonnar started his acting career in High School at Leith Academy, he recalls sitting with his friend one day when the names of all the award winners were read out, Mark says

"....I remember I was sitting in front of my best mate Keith, They were all the usual studious types. I turned to Keith to say 'it's all the posh and clever ones who win the prizes' and then my name was read out. I took a lot of ribbing about that."

After being talked out of doing a Drama course at school by his guidance teacher, doing physics instead, Mark left school with no real qualifications, and like many of us back then ended up doing a YTS, or youth training scheme to those that don't know. He worked in a library for two years, the beautiful building on McDonald Road in Edinburgh, before drifting in and out of other jobs and spending some time travelling in the US before the money ran out.

He returned home to the old job, this time driving the mobile library, but got bored of it and ended up in the planning offices of Edinburgh council before deciding to do a year's National Certificate in drama at Telford College and this time completed his course.

He then did three years at Glasgow's Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. In his final year, he won the Carlton Hobbs BBC Radio Award, which gave him six months with BBC Radio in London, where he's lived ever since.

The keen eyed of you out there will recognise a link to the other birthday boy today, as Mark plays regular Duncan Hunter in Shetland, Duncan is the biological father to Jimmie Perez's "daughter" Cassie.

Bonnar has appeared on many shows on television as Peter Mayhew in BBC1's New Blood and Chris in the highly successful Channel 4 comedy Catastrophe, alongside screen wife and fellow Scot Ashley Jensen.

Other television credits include Vera, Rebus, Taggart, Grantchester, Case Histories, The Paradise, Doctor Who, Psychoville, Taggart, Phoneshop and Paradox. He also played regular Bruno Jenkins in the 23 episodes of the BBC1 series Casualty and DCC Mike Dryden in the brilliant cop show Line of Duty.

Mark has also voiced video games, Assassins Creed and Battlefield one and children's tv show series Tree Fu Tom.

Also a regular on the theatre front where he has played Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing and the lead role in Cyrano de Bergerac. On Radio his most prolific part was in a Piper Alpha, the play chronicles the disaster minute-by-minute as it happened.

One of Mark's more recent shows was Guilt, set in my native Edinburgh it was a dark comedy about two brothers who accidentally run over and kill an old man, if you haven't seen it please look it up! He was also in the mini series Quiz about Charles Ingram, who was convicted of cheating his way to the jackpot in Who wants to be a Millionaire.

As with his friend Dougie Henshall, Markis set to appear in the TV movie Murder is easy, he ahs also been in a short TV "movie" Calamity James nd appeared in five episodes of the drama World on Fire and starred n the Ridley Scott biopc Napolean that is due to be released next week.

Theatre list 2022

Best of Enemies (Young Vic)* Nutcracker (St Petersburg ballet) Street Scene (Kurt Weill) (Teatro Real Madrid) Private Lives (Hall for Cornwall) Verdi's Rigoletto: On the Lake (Bregenz Festival) Carmen (Sydney Harbour) The Dante Project (Royal Ballet) Madame Butterfly (Sydney Harbour) Groan-ups (Hall for Cornwall) Kiss Me Kate (BBC Proms) Aida (Sydney Harbour) Ludovico Einaudi : The Elements Around the World in 80 Days (Rain or Shine) The Collaboration (Young Vic)* Cyrano de Bergerac (Harold Pinter)* Bill Bailey Larks in Transit (ROH) Everybody's Talking About Jamie (Hall for Cornwall) The Play What I Wrote (Birmingham Rep) Rumplestiltskin (Ballet Lorent) Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre henry iv part 1 (rsc 2014) Macbeth (Globe) Bonnie and Clyde (Arts Theatre)* Much Ado About Nothing (globe)* The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (Hall for Cornwall) (2nd half) Wine Night (Lona Theatre, AMATA) HMS Pinafore (ENO) Oklahoma (Young Vic) Magic Goes Wrong (Hall for Cornwall)* Kate Rusby (Hall for Cornwall) La Bayadere (Royal Balllet) Ladies of Letters (Hall for Cornwall)* Rough Girls (Lyric Belfast) The Recruiting Officer (Rain or Shine) Much Ado (National Theatre)* Much Ado (Blewbury) The Tempest (Globe)* Prisoner C33 Jack Absolute Flies Again (National Theatre)* I, Joan (Globe) The Tempest (Globe) Much Ado About Nothing (globe)* Six (Hall for Cornwall)* Richard iii (rsc) Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (Hall for Cornwall)* The Seagull (Harold Pinter) Wuthering Heights (Bristol Old Vic) Nutcracker! (Bourne) White Christmas (Hall for Cornwall) Sleeping Beauty (Bourne) (Theatre Royal Plymouth) Gods of the Game (Grange Park Opera) Treasure Island (Hall for Cornwall) Henry V (Globe)* Hex (National Theatre) A Christmas Carol:  A Ghost Story (Nottingham Playhouse) As You Like It (sohoplace)*

Best 12

Best of Enemies (Young Vic)* The Collaboration (Young Vic)* Cyrano de Bergerac (Harold Pinter)* Bonnie and Clyde (Arts Theatre)* Much Ado About Nothing (globe)* Much Ado (National Theatre)* The Tempest (Globe)* Jack Absolute Flies Again (National Theatre)* Six (Hall for Cornwall)* Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (Hall for Cornwall)* Henry V (Globe)* As You Like It (sohoplace)*

Best of Enemies : Hi we're going to examine ego and the birth of modern media and political commentary and identity and ... yes that is Andy Warhol, everyone else at the party is trying to ignore him too.

The Collaboration: Art! Reawakening artistic impulses!  Connection with the world! Tunes!  Paul Bettany!

Cyrano de Bergerac: Words, desire, the power of words, rap battles, being a dick because you can, falling for people, depth of emotion, James McAvoy's thighs (my view for the first ten minutes) and Christian and Cyrano falling for each other as well and MY HEART.

Bonnie and Clyde: We're gonna heist and we're going for fame and tomorrow doesn't exist.

Much Ado (Globe): It's Italy post-war.  We're all horny as hell, everyone is beautiful, the coppers are trying to kill us laughing via shenanigans, will you please get out of my shrubbery, and ladsladslads is it gay to wrestle your mates this much?

Much Ado (NT) : Setting:  Grand Budapest Hotel. Challenge:  ice cream toppings and pec popping. Glam as fuck. *mwah*. (not as good as Globe, Beatrice and Benedick were more weirdos who band together than banter, but achingly glam)

The Tempest (Globe): The Island is the spanish riviera, everyone is Brits who think they're better than the natives, Prospero's in a yellow budgie smuggler and it turns out this is actually a comedy, Lionesses win so they have to re-jig the Three Lions lyrics mid-run in glorious fashion and Prospero is absolutely a fuckhead slavemaster.

Jack Absolute Flies Again: WW2 farce! malapropisms delivered so perfectly you nearly kill the audience!  ukeleles!

Six: The ushers will dance and you can't stop us.  And yes everyone's favourites are the Annes.  Sorry not Sorry.

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo:  The boys are back, they're en pointe and they're glorious.

Henry V (Globe): Henry goes full psychopath to the point that Jude Law's been left in the dust in scary Hals and I didn't think I'd ever say *that*.  When the usual comedic bits leave a hole in your soul.

As You Like It (sohoplace): Sorry, hearing actors.  Rose Ayling-Ellis has put a cherry on top of why Celia should be played by a deaf actor. (see Globe and Nadia Nadarajah) Entire cast flirting with the pianist should be encouraged.  Also: Alfie Enoch needs to go full ham more often. New best stage direction as provided by the subtitles; *pianist improvises frantically*

'Fuck off, keep fucking off, and fuck off again, you’re boring and tiresome and self-involved and why the fuck should I care about you?’ Award:

Aside from all the classical opera (I keep trying.  I fail.  This is just not a genre I can handle.  Decent tunes on occasion, lots of plodding pageantry and singing at people rather than advancing the plot. Though Gods of the Game was pretty decent by virtue of the fact that it kept employing opera tunes footie fans use but for adverts and the chorus of fans. Toreador as the jingle tune for a burger advert the lead is doing?  NICE.) Wuthering Heights.  Quite brilliant staging, and I thought it would be the Emma Rice-ness turning me off in this but no, it was the Bronte.  I literally just want to yell 'fucking leave, don't come back' at everyone.  The Emma Rice twiddly dance and music numbers were actually pretty good.

Favorites of January

It's been kind of fun to let my whim take me where it wants to each day to discover new stories and songs. Who knows if I'll keep it up for the rest of the year as I get busier, but I'm happy to have been able to do this if at least for this month. I'm going to jot down a few thoughts so I can look back at this to see what I liked the most at the end of the year.

Films:

Monster (2023) At it's heart, this is a film that is concerned with perceptions and the misconstrued perspectives one has of another. The film proceeds in a Rashomon-style that isn't new to film or shows, but it's perhaps one of the best written and cinematic execution of the trope I've yet to see. Director Koreeda does such a phenomenal job of portraying all these layers being peeled back and then ultimately, such a heartfelt job portraying the two young kids at the center of the film. It's one of those kinds of films I'll be thinking about years from now, much like the last film of his I saw ("Shoplifters"). I could talk about this film for hours.

Inu-Oh (2021) One of my favorite animation directors in recent years has been Masaaki Yuasa. As a director, his stories can be a bit out there, as seen in "Ride Your Wave," but that's part of the charm of his movies, in my opinion. "Inu-Oh" is no different in this regard. Though it's an adaptation of an epic tale written sometime during/before 13th century Japan, the movie does it in such a fascinating way of making it an animated musical film that combines classic folk Japanese music and modern rock music. The film also portrays this wonderfully in animation visuals, with contrast in traditional Japanese dance to the modernized dance-style that Inu-Oh executes. The film has stunning visuals and transitions. It's also a film that pays an ode to storytelling that reminds us of why we tell stories as we live, tragedies or not.

Cyrano de Bergerac (2019, National Live Theatre) Cyrano has been a fascinating story for me a long time, since my high school English teacher assigned us to read the play. As someone who's admired James McAvoy as an actor for a long time as well, I thought I'd check out this modern adaptation of Cyrano. What a fascinating take on the story. It's an adaptation that reminds you of why words can be so damn beautiful and attractive. This live theater performance adapts prose into more than just letters written. Words that used to be written and spoken as poetry becomes lyrics that individuals can say and rap to one another and I had such a fun time seeing how all these actors could wax lyrically well-written prose. James McAvoy does such a phenomenal job in his role as Cyrano.

Past Lives (2023) Considering it's nominated for one of the best pictures of the year, it's not really a surprise that this would be one of my favorites I saw this month. Still, this film really struck a chord with me personally as a protagonist stuck between the what-if of her past love & life and the present and future of her current life and lover. It's a subtle film, with no grandiose moments as some films are wont to have in Hollywood, but it's very pragmatic in its approach in such a beautiful way that I can't help but love it. I'm not without minor criticisms for the film, but I do think it's a film that perfectly encapsulates the longing and the love for what was and what could've been--and also the love that you have for the now.

Literature

Girls & Boys (Denis Kelly, performed by Carey Mulligan) I feel like I've always read about one-person plays and see it in monologues, but never quite seen/read one. To get this as my first one was a joy. It's an interesting read, because it starts out as a story of a woman recounting in a mundane manner facets of her life--such as how she met her husband, little moments with her two children, how her job went. It feels like a casual retelling of her life sprinkled in with memories she's recounting that are very clear-cut, like her discussions with her children. So the play continues with interesting discussions and experiences she has, until there's a key moment she tells you the truth about something that occurs in her life and the pieces of what she's been monologuing about draw it into a clearer reality and a sort of cruel one. Her specific monologues when she tells the audience the truth, a gentle reminder of what has happened to her has not happened to you (as the audience) and has already happened is quite telling of how those who have suffered tragedies live on. And the final monologue she has before the play ends on a memory she has with her children is haunting. Carey carries this play in such a graceful and haunting way that it's honestly made me want to check out many more of her films.

Skyward by Brandon Sanderson I think sometimes I just like characters like Pattern (Stormlight Archive). The fact that M-Bot in Skyward reminds me of that little spren at times just cracks me up. Skyward is not my favorite Sanderson novel, but I had such a fun time reading Spensa's adventure becoming a pilot and partnering with an AI that loves cataloguing mushrooms. Sanderson does such a wonderful job of writing characters that I can't help but be fond of.

Music

“Coming of Age,” Blondes This is the kind of song I would've listened to non-stop in my teenage years, because I just love the kind of sound you can only have with a band.

“2000 Miles”, Gatlin There's something about the words and the way she sings "And when the sun hit me, didn't mind you weren't with me, it kinda made me happy," that just hit me personally. I enjoyed discovering Gatlin's other songs as well (first time listening to her), but this one was my personal favorite.

“Tummy Hurts,” Renee Rapp I curiously decided to listen to Renee Rapp because I've been wanting to check out the new Mean Girls movie and was wondering how she sounded. She's genuinely a very good singer, both on record and live. I like quite a few of her songs, like the one she has with Megan Thee Stallion, but this one in particular is my favorite.

“J’ai perdu mon corps,” Dan Levy I saw a film I liked that honestly deserves to be listed in the films I mentioned above, but was just slightly less well-put-together in my personal opinion. The film is titled "J'ai perdu mon corps" or "I Lost My Body" and is a wonderfully animated film about a hand that was separated from its body. The soundtrack is phenomenal and I really liked the film's main score, as noted by this bullet point. Film is worth checking out, as is the score.

“See You,” Christopher Bear, Daniel Rosen Speaking of film scores, I'm rather surprised Past Lives was not also nominated for best soundtrack, because its soundtrack is fantastic. I loved this piece in particular, as it is the background track to the emotional moment at the end of the film.

Icelandic version of the Cyrano De Bergerac novel, based off of the version with Stefán Karl

Article written for Dagblaðið Vísir - DV on the 2nd of April 2002, supervised by Silja Aðalsteinsdóttir: https://timarit.is/page/3027997?iabr=on#page/n11/mode/1up

Nothing that touches you leaves my memory: I also remember after your haircut on the twelfth of May, I remember it again when you first came, I got such a glow in my eyes same as the one who stares into the sunlight for long and sees that the glow lasts as long as the halo is left in the eyes as a dull yellow color!

Once upon a time, all plays were in limited language, as we know from the Greek tragedies and Shakespeare's plays, and in reality nothing is more self-evident. It is true that people don't usually speak in formal language, but the playwrights were not trying to imitate everyday human speech either. Both of them were writing fiction, and it is obviously much easier for an actor to learn a text that is bound together by rhythm, alliteration and/or rhyme - as can be clearly seen in the very short example above from the love confession of Cyrano de Bergerac, translated by Kristján Árnason.

Long relationship

The National Theater's Christmas play this winter was Cyrano de Bergerac, a humorous hero play by the Frenchman Edmond Rostand, composed at the end of the 19th century about Cyrano, the big-nosed hero who lived in the 17th century, and who, together with the playboy Christian, sought the love of the graceful Roxane.

Kristján Árnason, a poet and translator, translated the play, which is all in English, for the National Theatre. Now it has also been published as a book by Mál og Menning so that the braggart can be better enjoyed, and those who want to learn about Cyrano are referred to Kristján's entertaining introduction to the publication. Kristján knew little about the work before he agreed to translate it for Gísli Alfreðsson, the then director of the National Theatre. But he really had the opportunity to get to know it closely, because when it finally came on stage, it was 17 years since he started the translation work, which he did in stages.

The play takes about five hours to perform in its entirety, and Kristján knew that if it were performed in this country, it would be shortened. "I originally thought of shortening it myself," he says, "but then it turned out that I translated it all as it was, and that's why it would be worth it to get the text published in a book." in the show it was shortened by a third and still some people thought it was too long!"

Tried my patience

Kristján has previously tackled men such as Goethe, Rimbaud, Rilke, Thomas Mann, Süskind and Aristophanes himself with splendid results - how did you solve this task?

"Well, I secretly enjoyed it," says Kristján, "especially when I started to see the end of it!" It's a lot of work and it tried my patience. I don't shake things up like that. The play is under the French Alexandrine-

Kristján Árnason got to fight with the poet and swordsman Cyrano de Bergerac:

Tragic Comedy

manner, based on a trick used by the Greeks in their plays, while the French add rhyme. I keep the rhyme but have the lines a little shorter, like in blank verses."

The bound form also makes them sharper, and if you have the power to do so, they penetrate the audience's ears better than unbound speech." DV-photo by Pjetur

Didn't you run the risk of getting stuck in the braggart - thinking in its rhythm and rhyme? "Of course, there was no way around it," Kristján laughs. "But you also got a certain outlet for the need for bravado with this work. I've always enjoyed plays in a limited language, ever since I came across Matthías Jochumsson's translations of Manfred by Byron and Brandi Ibsen at a young age. I started writing plays in limited language by myself when I was a teenager and never thought of writing a play in any other way! But it is of course anachronistic - and many people think Cyrano is anachronistic. But he was also like that when the work was written, a work that was completely at odds with the realist plays that were gaining ground at the time. And it was supposed to be anachronistic, the author wanted to revive the classic era of the Sun King in France, and Cyrano is a good representative of him and the virtues that were held in high esteem at that time - bravery, eloquence, loyalty, love and honor, independence and determination. That's exactly why he has a mission for the modern world, at least I think there's a good reason to keep these virtues alive, even if they seem demeaning in our day."

The art of words is more important than the psychology

How do you like the play after all this work? Did it grow or shrink in your mind? "It's been up and down. The play has an external elegance that is fascinating," says Kristján. "The vocabulary is more significant than the psychology, which is perhaps a bit simple. But she still goes all the way up, I think. This is a play about a man who is skilled both as a swordsman and a poet, and there is great wordplay in the text, which is also musical, you can play with phrases like music, throw them between each other. The bound form also makes them sharper, and if you have the power to do so, they penetrate the audience's ears better than unbound speech."

Do you think that the psychology is very simplistic? I found Christian, the foolish lover, such an exciting character when I read the play. Cyrano's duel with words during their first meeting, when Christian mentions Cyrano's nose in every sentence and drives him crazy with anger, suggests that Christian is a very clever fellow and I wonder if he's just dyslexic and that is why he has such a hard time writing a letter to Roxane?

They are perhaps both more verbose than they are at first glance, comrades," says Kristján, "and precisely these puns are the play's advantage and the translator's entertainment, even though they are also difficult. You never translate jokes of this kind directly, but you have to create new puns instead and word games. Then you will be filled with creative joy. Then there are magnificent monologues in between, like when Cyrano rejects becoming a court poet with a long speech in which he proclaims the independence and freedom of the artist. He does not strive for fame-

To dedicate, as is the custom, their work to the powerful, so that the gentle smile on their faces can be softened and stop being hard and frozen. No thanks… That a person's literature will be published before payment in a highly respected literary work. No thanks!

He struggles to speak. And although this seems anachronistic compared to when the historical Cyrano lived, it is worth remembering that he did not follow the beaten path. He was a rebel, a free thinker, and finally the originator of science fiction - all in writing about trips to the moon, as actually appears in the play when he delays the hopeful De Guiche while Roxane and Christian are being married. Cyrano was very interested in science and put forward theories about how to get to the moon, he thought that it would be possible to be pulled there by magnetic force."

The nose is historical

-Isn't it bitter that such a genius is mostly famous for his big nose and failed love?

"It's certainly the grayness of fate, but it gives the character a certain depth," says Kristján. "The strength is mainly on the surface because it carries this pain underneath. The love story, however, comes from Rostand himself. The historical Cyrano did have a cousin, but no relationship of this kind is known between them. But he had a nose, abnormally large, and it is said that he fought more than one duel to defend his complex! From the life of this historical person, Rostand creates a classic comedy in which Cyrano gets the role of the sly slave, the middleman who brings the lovers together. The work also becomes tragic because the lovers are unable to enjoy themselves even though they are to marry, but in a way you can say that Cyrano and Roxane get a moment together at the end, so Rostand still breaks them out of the formula."

-Do you think Cyrano is following you?

"Yes, don't you think so?" says Kristján in a half spumar tone. "I'm glad to have had a chance to fight with him. Because, of course, it was a fight - which ended, however, in such a way that neither was badly hurt.

-SA

Okay but imagine how sexy it would be of National Theatre to sell dvds or digital downloads to people who aren’t British students at specific institutions

sketches done while watching the national theatre’s 2020 production of cyrano de bergerac 

James McAvoy as Cyrano & Eben Figueiredo as Christian NATIONAL THEATRE LIVE: CYRANO DE BERGERAC (2019) | part 2

If anyone loved watching the National Theatre Live on YouTube during quarantine...wait until you find out you can see them in the cinema!

(Link in the comments)

Buddha on a biscuit, this was phenomenal. And I only saw this in the cinema. I cannot fathom how incredible it would have been live.

My brain has earwormed freestyle rhythm vamping since I walked out of the cinema.

Ahh just got my notice for this at our local art house. I doubt I'll be going as I'll be in the worst of the chemo cocktails and at nadir the March Sunday it's here. But they often do a rerun the next year so I'll catch it then. James is mesmerizing.

I LOVE WORDS THAT’S ALL inspired by the amazing James McAvoy  in Cyrano de Bergerac 🖤🖋🎙 

artwork by @ismailovatwins