“His nose preceding him by a quarter of an hour, the hero of Cyrano de Bergerac is a reminder that there were once things plastic surgery couldn’t do. Today it can turn Michael Jackson into his own sister…Men who can’t wow a woman with the fearful symmetry of their faces will always have to talk for victory. Cyrano will go on showing them how, in a coruscating tragicomical pastiche that almost no amount of miscalculation can make dull. It must be said, however, that the new production at the National Theatre might have been designed to prove otherwise. A critic, in my view, should always report the reaction of the audience before he delivers his own opinion. Well, the first-night audience clapped dutifully at the end, and there were cheers for Cyrano himself, as incarnated by the film star Stephen Rea. But the Germans have a phrase that fits: der Beifall war endenwollend. The applause wanted to be over.” – Clive James, on a roll in the Times Literary Supplement.
THE NON-EVENT: Jeffrey Rosen explains why Massachusetts civil marriages for gays, due May 17, will be a massive anti-climax.
CUBA OR TERROR? Tim Perry sees some screwed-up priorities in the federal government’s financial oversight.
The Dish 