“Cyrano de Bergerac” is a biographical tragicomedy of sorts, by Edmond Rostand written in 1897, loosely based on the real life poet of the same name. It played at the Folsom Lake College Performing Arts Center for one night only on March 21st 2013 where I viewed it. It’s important to note that I am a fan of Edmond Rostand’s work and the theatre troupe Aquila. So going in I expected a good performance, what I didn’t expect was to experience the rare pleasure of getting completely absorbed in a story being told. During the first moments of the play, I had my usual reviewer mindset on and was merely analyzing the work than really ‘watching’ it. Then something weird happened, I can’t say when exactly but suddenly I was no longer thinking of the review but of the characters and their troubles, personalities, quirks, hopes, dreams, etc. I felt less like an audience member and more like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window, completely ignorant of everything except the events unfolding before me. Luckily unlike Mr. Stewart, no one tried to murder me during the procedure and nor did I have to take a fall from a three story building at any point.

I suppose I should back up and describe the plot, (although I’d assume most people are familiar with it thanks in part to the Steve Martin film) it’s set in France, 1640 and centers on the swordsmen/poet/musician/part time theatre critic Cyrano de Bergerac, who apart from Jean Val Jean and Batman is perhaps the smoothest operator in all fiction. Like most great heroes however, he has a flaw that makes him tragically human. For Batman it was dead parents, for Val Jean it was being an ex-con, and for Cyrano it’s an abnormally large, almost phallic shaped nose. An otherwise exquisite and fearless individual, the nose makes Cyrano insecure in his ability to attract women and he even goes so far as to say:

[I am denied] the dream of being loved by an ugly woman

So as you can hazard a guess, the plot is around Cyrano trying to woo a lovely lady and get over his extreme self-confidence issues. Not quite exactly, Cyrano has a debilitating crush on his cousin (distant cousin, mind you) but instead of manning up he decides to live out his fantasy by aiding a handsome but stupid young man named Christian by writing all his letters to her for him, telling him what to say during a date (sometimes on the actual date whilst hiding), and overall Christian basically becomes an extension of Cyrano in all but looks.

The thing that’s truly great about the story is how balanced it all is. The whole situation lends itself well to both comic and dramatic appeal, and most writers couldn’t keep both of those plates spinning. Either they end up milking the comedy to the point where the serious scenes lack weight, or the dramatic sequences make the light comedy feel out of place. It takes the work of a masterful author to be able to conduct people like an orchestra to the point where one moment they’re laughing and the next they’re brushing away tears and when even attempting such a thing, the play will usually have a tendency to go completely snooker loopy and lose all traces of humanity. But it doesn’t, it’s a true testament to a work of fiction’s staying power when it remains both funny and sad over a hundred years after it was written–and presented in a different language no less.

But as anyone worth their salt would know, good writing is all for naught if there are no charismatic actors to read them. Aquila does not drop the ball here, they are definitely a talented and experienced troupe and they handle the source material well. Special mention should go to the fellow playing Cyrano, Jamie Bower (whom I actually took an improv acting class from once). In an odd sort of way his commanding performance reminded me of John Cleese. At the end of the day, no matter who your favorite Python is, when you watch Flying Circus and John Cleese appears, he immediately steals the entire scene. The same is true for Jamie’s Cyrano, every time he appears the other characters almost take a back seat to his shtick, which hilariously is quite befitting to how the actual Cyrano would be as an actor.
Cyrano is pretty much the perfect kind of entertainment because it satisfies on both an intellectual level with its dialogue and the more shameless, visceral part of our minds because of its action and its humor. Is this incarceration of Cyrano the very best? Probably not, the 1950 film version still stands as an immortal classic that gets better with each repeated viewing but this version too stands head and shoulders above the crowd. I think Cyrano himself would give the film a very positive review just for it’s ‘panache’.