Theatre: Longing for Love

A clever but strained production, Cyrano is saved by its final act when the script finds its voice and we realise it's all about love, writes Colin Murphy

Cyrano. Presented by Barabbas. Project Space Upstairs, 39 East Essex St, D2 01 881 9613, www.project.ie. 10-18 November

A celebrity chef, jokes about Snow Patrol and tequila shots, "fuck buddies", ubiquitous TV screens and, of course, that very long prosthetic nose. Barabbas have dragged the tale of Cyrano de Bergerac into the Irish noughties. And though they try very hard, they can't quite make it fit.

Yet, after two hours or so of clever, but strained, sparring and seducing, all the extraneous detail suddenly drops away. This play has a beating heart and it is exposed in the final scene. This is real, raw drama, and gooseflesh acting. Two people who should be together grappling with a fate that has kept them apart. We hang on their every word, willing words into their mouths. Breaths are held and tears fought back. By the audience. It is that good. Worth waiting for.

But back to the beginning. Cyrano de Bergerac is well known from the wonderful 1990 French film with Gérard Depardieu and the (less wonderful) 1987 American version, Roxanne, with Steve Martin.

Cyrano is both a poet and a highly-skilled swordsman (a fireman, in the Hollywood version), in love with Roxanne but terrified to declare it because he believes himself, hidden behind an impossibly large nose, to be hideous. So when a young protégé, Christian, declares himself attracted to Roxanne, Cyrano volunteers to help make the match and woos Roxanne by letter, on the youngster's behalf, unbeknownst to Roxanne.

Veronica Coburn, adapting and directing, gives us an analogous scenario straight from the Sunday Independent: rivalry between two celebrity chefs for the love of an eminent food critic. Raymond Keane wears the prosthesis as the elder chef, Aidan Turner is the hot-blooded young fellow and Kelly Campbell is the erudite but passionate critic.

Within that scenario the play develops predictably, with some humour, solid performances, sexual shenanigans but, for much of it, little spark. There are numerous scenes where Cyrano orchestrates dates between the other two, either with dramatic success or which go comically wrong. Lacking either the flair of the French period original or the unselfconscious indulgence of the Steve Martin version, much of this seems blandly improbable (though still eminently watchable, thanks to the vim of the performers).

Without the facility of additional characters, there is little room to make much of the comic value of the nose and, after one awkward monologue in which Cyrano himself devises 26 nose-based insults, both the characters and the audience pretty much forget about it.

And why the TV screens? Coburn uses a sophisticated audiovisual setup: two digicams film the actors live on stage. This footage is mixed with background projections to transpose the action to outdoor locations and shown on six TVs. The actors cavort on a rug on stage and the TVs above their heads show them in a field. Briefly impressive and quickly pointless.

Thank God, and Coburn, then, for the final act, which is set 10 years later when Cyrano and Roxanne have moved on from their days in the celebrity food world. The play, previously frantic, stills. The actors visibly age. The narrative is simplified. The TVs are off. Crucially, Coburn's script finds its voice, no longer buckling under the challenge of interposing Cyrano and Roxanne's high eloquence with Christian's yoof idiom. Like Cyrano, we realise it's not about the nose, it's about love. It's too late for Cyrano, but it's just in time for the play. It ends with panache.