The scene where he abandons his native Glaswegian and emulates the melting-pot argot of Eben Figueiredo’s Christian to seduce the listening Roxane is at first hilarious, then deeply erotic. LONDON — A bright and noble passion floods the Jamie Lloyd Company’s ravishing “Cyrano de Bergerac,” starring a fiercely romantic James McAvoy in the title role. “And there were times where he was very physically abusive to my mum.
With powerfully contemporary stagings of “Betrayal” and “Cyrano,” Jamie Lloyd has had an attention-grabbing year. “Oh God, yeah, fascinating. Like when I fact-checked something I’d read by asking whether he was a vegan. Indeed, the scenes during the siege of Arras, partly staged in complete darkness, are very moving. 10 He volunteered a memory, though — of being a little one “amongst these kind of big giants, and I guess what we can now see as the mess of their lives.”Doing “Betrayal” in New York, Lloyd was struck by how eager Americans were to chat about his tattoos. In conversation, Lloyd comes across as thoughtful and unassuming, with an animated humor that makes him fun company. Cyrano, a brilliant man who thinks himself ugly is compelled to woo Roxane, the woman he loves, on behalf of his stupidly handsome rival, Christian. Their eldest, 13-year-old Lewin, is an actor who recently played one of the principal characters, the heroine’s irresistible best friend, on the HBO and BBC One series “Lloyd’s interpretation of “Betrayal,” a 1978 play that recounts a seven-year affair, imbued it with a distinctly non-’70s awareness of the fragility of family — the notion that children are the bystanders harmed when a marriage is tossed away.Its gasp-inducing moment came with the entrance of a character Pinter wrote to be mentioned but not seen: the small daughter of the couple whose relationship is imperiled. Microphones are used throughout to amplify the verbal duelling but in Cyrano’s final meeting with Roxane McAvoy uses one to generate a startling intimacy.Riveting though he is, this is far from a star vehicle, though.
If he speaks at the speed of someone with no time to waste, he balances that with focused attentiveness.His father, Ray, was a truck driver. I’d not thought about that. Adapted here by Martin Crimp and directed by Jamie Lloyd, Edmond Rostand's 1897 play Cyrano de Bergerac follows a swashbuckling soldier who falls in love in a dangerous way. So she did the show, warning that at some point she would have to leave. I don’t ever, ever want to direct this play.’ Because that’s, for me, the perfect production.” Charm is a ready currency in the theater, but Lloyd’s is disarming; he seems simply to be being himself, without veneer. And yet masked with this literal makeup, but also this sense of trying to entertain people whilst enacting terrible brutality behind the scenes.”This is where he locates his own connection to Pinter’s work.“A lot of that is that the violence is beneath the surface,” he said. That’s not what makes him hard to miss.LONDON — The director Jamie Lloyd was giving me a tour of his tattoos. That’s not what makes him hard to miss. Cyrano de Bergerac sees Jamie Lloyd and James McAvoy continue their long-standing collaboration followingThe Ruling Class and Macbeth at Trafalgar Studios, Three Days of Rain at Apollo Theatre and Heart of Darknessfor BBC Radio 4.The production opens at Playhouse Theatre on 6 December, with previews from 27 November and runs until 29 February. In putting her onstage, Lloyd didn’t touch the text; it was a simple, wordless role. I think he’s always just trying to tell the story in the clearest and most exhilarating way possible.”The “X-Men” star, who put the number of times he’s worked with Lloyd Yet Lloyd himself is on board with the notion that his assertively contemporary stagings pare back stifling layers of performance history to lay bare what’s underneath.Like the tiger and dragons that he had emblazoned on his head just last May, though, the unembellished nature of his shows — as minimalist in their way as his tattoos are the opposite —Lloyd’s first “Cyrano de Bergerac,” starring Douglas Hodge in 2012, was also There is, granted, sword-fighting in the new one — but the audience has to imagine the swords.Lloyd’s productions, including a lauded revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s “That immersion led to what the director Michael Grandage — one of Lloyd’s early champions, who tapped him at 27 to be his associate director at the “I had quite a lot of ambition to do a production of ‘Betrayal’ in my life,” Grandage said. His company has set aside 15,000 free and 15,000 £15 tickets for its current, characteristically starry three-show season, which will also include Emilia Clarke in “The Seagull” and Jessica Chastain in “A Doll’s House.” At the 786-seat Playhouse, that adds up to just over 38 full houses.“It sounds a little bit like some dodgy film, because he was actually a really violent man,” he said.
Performed by an ethnically and physically diverse ensemble in modern dress, with hardly any set and without a prosthetic proboscis for McAvoy, it engages the imagination, the mind and the heart.