Foreman Funnies - Who Knows! Cyranose!

“A great nose may be an index/ Of a great soul”

― Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac

Ah, the joys of double casting. 

Every Drama teacher’s nightmare. 

Double the cast, quadruple the work.

That’s what Robin and I did for our ’86 adaptation of Cyrano. 

Oh yes, and all written in blank verse. 

Strangely enough after a while I found myself thinking in blank verse.

Cyrano’s nose

Of course, we had two Cyranos. And two very different noses to find/make; one very solid chunk of a Roman nose and one much finer, Nordic nose. 

I’d been having fun using plaster of Paris bandage for mask making so I thought, Easy. I made a cast of each one, then filled each clay. Wait for it to dry, peel away the plaster, build up each with plasticine. But then what. I’d been making the masks by layering onto a positive mould. That wouldn’t work for this.

I sourced some cold moulding latex. And had to make another mould of each new nose. And then remove the plasticine. I had never used latex before but lucked out that the first pour worked, and the resultant noses fitted but needed paint and make-up.

Job done. Well, that job done.

Then there was the fight. At the end of Act One. Involving 15 people. 

I’ve since explained to classes that a stage fight is very much a choreographed free dance. Every action and reaction must be carefully planned if it is to be performed over a number of shows. And safely. Each combatant MUST know exactly they are doing and when and where. Relatively easy when it is two people. Toss in the cross interaction between three, six, twelve, fifteen cast members on stage…

Now for cast two!

I swear we spent hours on three minutes of stage time. That three minutes was problematic, too. As the cast worked and re-worked the fight everything sped up. They knew what they were doing. [The cast of Starlight Express – performed on roller blades – cut the running time of performances by fifteen minutes the further into the run they went.]

Not forgetting… the car on stage (It was after all a  ‘Modern’ version)

Oh yeah, and a car on stage. An old Cortina was donated – too long to fit on stage! So, the ‘Shed Men” cat school ut off the roof and cut out the back seat, then welded both halves of our now convertible back together. Painted pink with white-walled tyres, a ‘foxtail’ on the aerial and headlights connected to a battery, it was ready.  

There was no room backstage for it so it stayed onstage, under a black sheet for the first two scenes. Blackout. Sheet removed, rolled forward three meters, lights up… and gasps from the audience. They truly had not noticed it sitting there.