Sponsored by
VIDEO: Interview with Cyrano de Bergerac CFT star Joseph Fiennes
He is a soldier, poet, philosopher and a duellist, a great romantic creation, larger than life in larger-than-life times.
But his tragedy is he simply can't tell the woman he loves that he loves her. The reason is his outrageously big conk.
And that's why Shakespeare In Love actor Joseph Fiennes is convinced the tale of Cyrano de Bergerac will touch us all this summer.
As Joseph says, we all have nose issues. For nose, simply substitute whatever your own particular failing or weakness happens to be.
"Cyrano de Bergerac is revealing itself to be a very interesting piece, much more dark and complex than I had given it credit for," says Joseph, who stars as the man himself in the epic Chichester Festival Theatre production of Edmond Rostand's play, translated and adapted by Anthony Burgess and directed by Trevor Nunn (May 8-30).
"I had always felt it would be a wonderful and melodramatic piece with its outrageous themes and its outrageous conceit. But it is actually also very poignant."
The point is you don't have to like Cyrano, but you do have to feel for him – this brilliant man whose tragedy is his huge protuberance.
What the big nose actually stands for is clear, Joseph says: "It's a metaphor for all our faults and foibles, and I love that. The audience will subconsciously cling on to that."
Of course, the fact it is a nose makes it comic – as well as tragic. But Joseph will be aiming for something 'less Pinocchio' in its impact.
"The most amazing thing is that pretty much 90 per cent of the story is true, sprinkled with ten per cent wonderful, fantastical theatre dust. That's the revelation – reading about the man himself. He had written books about going to the moon or going to the sun, which the play talks about.
"He was one of the guards, he was a prolific writer to the point of being more than agnostic, probably atheist. And he was this weird thorn in the side of the state, railing against all that is not right.
"And yet you feel he is going that way because he is deeply unhappy – because of his unrequited love. We all want to be loved. He is a man who has a huge heart."
For Joseph, the production is a great chance to work once again with Trevor Nunn.
"He did a production of Love's Labours Lost which was his final signature on leaving the National. I just had great fun with him. He just has extraordinary wisdom and a wonderfully gentle approach. You feel in such good hands with his extraordinary sense of stagecraft."
And for Joseph, the coincidence of Cyrano, Trevor and his CFT debut was one to leap at.
"I have had conversations in the past about possibly doing one or two things there, but it was the combination this time that made it."
It also brings Joseph back to his beloved stage: "I love film, I love radio, I love all the media that are on offer. But the theatre is still the Olympics for an actor. It stretches you in ways other media really don't.
"You are working at such high levels. You tweak to high-sensitivity mode.
You've got your fellow actors, the director, the audience, you have the distractions, you have the huge heights of emotion... it's an elevated form.
" It's live – and for three hours you are swimming against all those things. A play is physically demanding. It can be spiritually demanding and it will also be mentally demanding."
And it's where Joseph started out before the huge film success kicked in.
"I started at the Young Vic at 17, and I dressed at the National for four years. That gave me a great insight into the mechanics of the theatre."
Inevitably, though, it was the massive success of Shakespeare In Love, in which Joseph so memorably played Shakespeare in 1998, that brought him the peak of his celebrity.
It was a film which triumphed at the Oscars the following year including Best Picture, Best Actress (for Gwyneth Paltrow) and Best Supporting Actress (for Judi Dench).
For Joseph, its success was down to the collaboration of director John Madden and playwright Tom Stoppard: "It was great in it took away the dusty academic side which I am sure puts a lot of people off Shakespeare.
"What Madden and Stoppard did was to present Shakespeare as an Everyman, and that's what people related to. They showed him as a great humanitarian."
After which, it seemed the world of films were Joseph's oyster, with tales of all sorts of offers coming in... and being turned down.
"I did go back to the theatre after that. I am not really satisfied until I warm myself through with a West End run or an interesting piece of new work. I just feel that in a film you are such a small component."
Joseph admits to smiling when he hears an actor say 'I have just made a film': "An actor is just such a minuscule part in the mechanics. So much is to do with the editor, the camerawork, the director...
"In the theatre you strip bare of all that. And I think the camera does lie. But the theatre doesn't lie. That's the honesty of it."
Tickets for Cyrano de Bergerac are on 01243 781312.
Click the green play button to see a video interview with Joseph Fiennes and director Trevor Nunn.
What do you think? Click here to send a letter or leave a comment below.
Click here to go back to Chichester news
Click here to go back to Bognor Regis news
Click here to go back to Midhurst and Petworth news
To tell us where in the world you are reading this story click on the link below to add yourself to our readers' map.
MAP
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Chichester
Monday 28 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 13 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 22 mph
Wind direction: West
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 12 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: West
