“If I was going to adapt this story, I could not be a part of something that says queer love is impossible”
BY YASMIN VINCE, IMAGE BY KYAHM ROSS
Cyrano is a tale as old as time. The French play has been adapted many times, most following the same story – a man falls in love with a woman but, fearing his massive nose means she can never love him back, decides to help someone else woo her. But if you head down to the Park Theatre in Finsbury Park this winter, you’ll get something different. Virginia Gay is bringing her gender-swapped, lesbian version to London.
Hot on the heels of receiving a Fringe First award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Virginia caught up with us to talk about the show and why she decided to make the centuries-old comedy queer…
Congratulations on the Fringe First!
Thank you! I didn’t know you could have a good Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I’ve done so many fringes and I have played to fewer people in the audience than there were in the cast. That’s my regular experience of Edinburgh. I didn’t know there was a version where everybody’s like, “Oh my God, we love your show.” It’s a miracle!
Why do you think it’s done so well?
The fact that it is a queer love story, a queer female love story, with a happy ending is incredibly important. My queer female friends and I always use this phrase “searching for scraps”. If you’re looking for a little lesbian substory in a pre-existing film, it can feel like you’re searching for scraps. You can be like, “I swear to God, there was a look.” Being able to give people a full meal is a huge part of it. Smart, funny queer women found it and they told their friends and I could not be more grateful.
But I also think part of its appeal is that it’s an adaptation of a classic. We had lots of people who were coming to see a version of Cyrano. It’s sort of a love letter to theatre as well. So if you love theatre generally, it’s your ideal show because it’s a show that’s very joyfully aware of itself in theatre.
Why did you decide to adapt the French play?
I saw James McAvoy in Jamie Lloyd’s Cyrano. There is no nose in that. Then you just see this incredibly beautiful, charismatic God of a human being who has decided that he is unworthy of love. That, my friend, is a queer story. That is the story of just being told that there’s something about you that makes you unlovable. Something about you that means that this incredible woman could never love you. Something about your body that excludes you from a love story with this woman.
Gender-swapping Cyrano wasn’t the only change you made, was it?
I bought two copies of the text at the interval of Jamie Lloyd’s version, having forgotten that everybody dies in the original. I decided that if I was going to adapt this story, I could not be a part of something that says queer love is impossible and kills our gays. I simply would not do that. And the world doesn’t want that.
If we are just feeding back the same stories of queer love as impossible, nothing will ever change. We have to change the stories to reflect a changing society but also to help encourage and bolster a changing society.
Cyrano will be at the Park Theatre from 11 December – 11 January. You can get tickets here.
Virginia was featured in our Dec/Jan issue. To grab your copy, go to: https://www.divadirect.info/
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