Faculty of Arts

"Cyrano" - Note from the Director

Long one of my favorite plays, Edmond Rostand's Cyrano De Bergerac is the classic romantic tale of a swashbuckling poet whose love for the beautiful Roxanne is thwarted by his absurdly long nose. Set in Paris in the late 1600s, it is a tale of romance, swordplay, and star-crossed lovers. Edmond Rostand seems to lift the plot of winning a lover by proxy directly from classical Italian farce. His genius lies in the fact that he mines the situation not for comedy but for its poetic beauty and pathose. Rostand's writing looks genuinely into the face of issues such as love, courage, loyalty, honour, and vanity. The play has a contemporary feels as its characters bravely hold themselves up to an almost modern standard of ruthless self-examination.

Working with Brian Hooker's translation, Frank Langella's adaptation edits the play down to under two thirds of its normal three-hour running time. The economy of this version clarifies the central actions and makes the passions and the intertwining of fates even more poignant.

The ageless appeal of Cyrano seems to lie in the audience's ongoing recognition that we are all, to some extent, a "Cyrano." We struggle against the subtle oppressions of our own world to remain free and follow our own hearts. In this production we have chosen to press this observation into a metaphor while handing the class a great acting challenge. With the use of Cyrano masks each actor takes a turn as the swashbuckling poet. As a theatrical device this seems to work perfectly, for throughout the play Cyrano is many things: poet, philosopher, lover, and swordsman. He seems to evolve and reinvent himself in every new scene. In rehearsal, watching the actors bring their own unique perspective and sensibilities to each of these scenes has been fascinating. And we have found, in fact, that it is less the mask that we are handing off to our cast mates to carry the play forward, but rather, Cyrano's "shining soul."