Thanks to Tumblr, I had seen this image. And learned that this image was from a production of Cyrano de Bergerac.
Several months ago, I saw the Peter Dinklage movie of the musical Cyrano, and then learned that this stage production with James was going to be in Brooklyn soon. So I thought, 1) I wanna see him kiss this man, 2) I wanna see what changes they have made to this story such that he is kissing Christian.
this is a fascinating take on the show op, I love it. I wanted to discuss the kiss though:
for context I was an usher for this production and have seen it many, many times, so I’ve picked up on some specific lines and staging choices specifically with the regards to the kiss. I also thought it came out of nowhere the first time I saw it, and it took me a few more times of seeing the show to catch where it came from.
the entire show, Cyrano refers to Christian as beautiful, and handsome, and specifically the phrase “pretty boy” is used a lot and repeated often when describing Christian by most of the female actors onstage… but also by Cyrano. The only man to refer to Christian using that phrase is Cyrano.
when they meet, there’s a curiously long hug that lasts *just* long enough for the audience to start laughing uncomfortably before they split apart, but not before they look into each other’s eyes and leave a lingering touch on each other before stepping back. There’s some kind of connection there that goes unspoken.
we do see Cyrano start to be able to joke around more around Christian as the show goes on, and Christian confesses to him that he has always felt more comfortable around men for some reason, and that he doesn’t know how to talk to women. That’s a big part of why he agrees to Cyrano’s plan: he feels confident in speaking intelligently to men and being able to come up with rhyme and verse around the men in the show. But not the women. Around women he feels dull and stupid.
I think part of his “stupidity” in this production is the fact that he feels like of course he’s in love with Roxanne, look at her, everyone’s in love with her! And then he looks at her, and can’t find the words to rhyme anything at all (which is a vastly important aspect of each character in this production.) When he’s with Cyrano, he has much less trouble speaking in rhyme. He can do it just fine. (I very firmly agree with op though that they made him way too unlikable and too much like a bully.)
Cyrano places his forehead against Christian’s very intently quite a few times in the show, and most times it’s Christian who breaks that contact first, scooting back nervously and looking away.
when Roxanne arrives on the battlefield, he isn’t pleased to see her. He doesn’t even smile. If Christian were genuinely being played as a dumb lovesick individual who can’t string two words together, he’d be grinning widely and thrilled to bits. But he isn’t: all he is, is mildly pissed off. he tells her she shouldn’t have come, and we, the audience, can see from her reaction that what she was expecting was the sweet lovesick smile. But she doesn’t get it.
Christian doesn’t even know how many letters Cyrano was writing for him. He doesn’t even know their contents. We see him ask Cyrano for that information after finding out how in love with her Cyrano is. If Christian were truly in love with his wife, he’d want to know every detail. But again- he doesn’t.
when they kiss, it’s Christian who oh so tentatively initiates it. There is a very long drawn-out pause in which Christian is just inching closer to Cyrano, as if to see how close he can get before Cyrano pulls away, but he doesn’t. And then they kiss, and break away, look into each other’s eyes, and then they both go back in for it, simultaneously. Christian breaks the kiss first, clearly panicking, and sprints upstage calling for Roxanne because Cyrano has something to tell her (aka, his love). Cyrano runs after Christian, desperately calling his name, and only stops when Roxanne calls him.
I think Christian realized the truth in that moment. He knew Cyrano loved Roxanne, and he knew that Roxanne loved the man in the letters, aka Cyrano, not him. And he knew, in this moment, that he didn’t love Roxanne back. That’s why he panics.
at the end of the show, after Christian’s death, Roxanne talks about how in love with her he had been, and how much she misses his love, and Cyrano doesn’t comment anything but just softly refers to him as “a confused boy” who didn’t know what he wanted.
I think they should have done a better job making this obvious to the audience, it definitely took me a while to figure out where in the show they made this kind of thing happen. So I think it definitely is there, but it’s subtle.
I do love to hear the uncomfortable laughter in the audience every night when the two of them kiss in the second act though, regardless of how unclear the build-up is. they are two men in a show that is famously about unrequited love, and they will kiss, slowly, onstage, right in front of you, forcing you to watch and accept that they are part of the story. and if that makes you uncomfortable? this show says too bad.
one time I was staffing a Very Important Party and I was in charge of making sure all the guests taking the elevator from the ground floor knew which floor to get off at. I asked a guy which floor he was heading to. He looked me up and down and just went “who the FUCK are you.”
me: “I’m just trying to make sure you get to the right floor sir”
him: “do you KNOW who I AM?”
Me: “no? …are you heading to the 16th floor?”
he’s now visibly flustered and just yells “FUCK YOU” and gets on the elevator.
to this day I have no idea who he was or if he even made it to the party. his loss.
