In the best possible way, you understand. It's one of the things I love most about them.
Tonight I think we came as close as humanly possible to that. And it was glorious.
With the lovely Clayton subbing in for Ryan on this tour and Andrew, aka the emergency version of Patrick (who had to unexpectedly head home due to an emergency a few days ago), who had a whole four shows under his belt and his script firmly in hand, Cyranose was barely controlled chaos. Again, in the best possible way.
Clayton is a perfect fit for Sound and Fury, and did remind me of the illegitimate lovechild of Richard and Patrick (is it any wonder given how they're looking at each other in the poster image)... He also reminded me a lot of Patrick performance-wise (that barely controlled comedy whirlwind I always associate with my favourite redheaded Fakespearean... so that's definitely a compliment), and I can only imagine a show with Clayton and Patrick together would have been something to see (pssst Richard, please bring Clayton again another time).
He's also incredibly cheeky and charming and very easy to look at, which never hurts. He also had the "quick change after quick change after quick change" role in the show, and did very well.
Andrew is still white-knuckling his way through the show right now, but that's not without it's own charm and moments of pure improvised/unexpected comedy, but for basically picking up the script at the last minute and this being his fourth or fifth performance, he's doing incredibly well.
And poor Richard has to keep this train on the tracks as it careens around the corners at breakneck speed. But he does it as stylishly as always and in verse more often than not (which I didn't realise was a feature of the original play they're riffing on).
This show does to Cyrano de Bergerac what they've previously done to Hitchcock, Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes and the entire fantasy and fairy tale genres. And between jokes about the letter N and the invention of sarcasm, I can't quite decide if it became funnier because the show threatened to dissolve at any moment or if this was already one of their better shows or some combination of both, but I did laugh myself silly more than once.
As always the show hovers between the very high and the very low brow, which is how I like it, and I would definitely say that as far as Sound and Fury shows goes, this one is more than a little unique, so get in and see it before this trio goes their separate ways.
Also, we're sending much love and thoughts to Patrick and hope to see you again next year.
yani's rating: 5 croissants out of 5
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