There’s a little bit of Cyrano in all of us, and it’s not about the nose.
“He’s the kind of guy we all want to be, and yet he has this Achilles heel of insecurity,” said Brenda Withers who, with writing partner Jason O’Connell, has twice adapted Edmond Rostand’s 1897 French play “Cyrano de Bergerac,” this time for the Old Globe. “In his case, it’s about his appearance, but everyone has their own ‘nose,’ so to speak.”
O’Connell calls the protagonist of his and Withers’ stripped down (for just five actors) adaptation, “Cyrano,” an “an amazing human being on so many fronts and so many levels. He knows what his skills are, what his many gifts are. There’s one thing he can’t get past and it’s the thing that winds up robbing him of true and complete happiness in his life.
“It’s a cautionary tale about insecurity and about the way we see ourselves.”
That one thing Cyrano can’t get past is that famously large nose of his.
“It’s like you have a stain on your shirt and you think everybody at a party’s looking at it, but they’re not,” said O’Connell. “We build these mountains in our minds and it’s incredible to the degree to which they can stymie us and prove obstacles to our happiness. Cyrano knows his value on the battlefield, his value as a poet, a thinker, a wit. He’s not some sad sack schlumping around. It’s a very specific blind spot.”
Michael Braun plays the title character in Jason O’Connell and Brenda Withers’ “Cyrano,” an adaptation of Edmond Rostand’s 1897 French play “Cyrano de Bergerac,” at The Old Globe. (Rich Soublet II)
Cyrano’s insecurity about his value as a romantic match for the beautiful Roxane — in Withers’ and O’Connell’s play, as in the classic that inspired it — leads him to write love letters to her on behalf of another, the young cadet named Christian. The scenario is “compelling and fascinating and heartbreaking,” O’Connell said. “You want to get on the stage and shake him and say ‘snap out of it.’”
The writing team’s first adaptation of the Cyrano story premiered in 2018 from Amphibian Stage Productions in Fort Worth, Texas, with O’Connell directing and his wife, actor/playwright Kate Hamill, portraying Roxane. After that and a few other productions elsewhere, “Cyrano” was waylaid by the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
“You think, ‘OK, well that’s it,’” O’Connell recalled. “It was exciting and gratifying when the Old Globe reached out. It was like ‘This might give it a new lease on life.’”
Withers considers the Globe commission “a new adaptation to the adaptation. We were super happy to try it. Having a play at the Old Globe is a dream.”
O’Connell is returning to the Globe, this time as a playwright, three years after performing as Sir Andrew Aguecheek in a production of Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” directed by Kathleen Marshall on the outdoor Lowell Davies Festival stage.
Michael Braun plays the title character in Jason O’Connell and Brenda Withers’ “Cyrano,” an adaptation of Edmond Rostand’s 1897 French play “Cyrano de Bergerac,” at The Old Globe. (Rich Soublet II)
“For the Globe we haven’t re-adapted our ideas as much as we’ve tried to streamline and focus everything,” he said. “Barry (Globe Artistic Director Edelstein) was hungry to see if there was more of an essential version of our take that might work at the Old Globe. Bring it down to something a little more muscular, something that really focuses, as ours already was hoping to do on the love triangle between Cyrano, Roxane and Christian.
“It’s rare for a theater to invest time and resources in reexamining a play that has been produced multiple times, but Barry saw what he considered a diamond within the rough that we might be able to focus more.”
At the Globe, this “Cyrano” is being directed in the Sheryl and Harvey White theater-in-the round by Annie Tippe, who last year directed the Globe’s world-premiere musical “Huzzah!”
Michael Braun will star as Cyrano, with Cailen Fu (from “Huzzah!”) as Roxane and Max Monnig as Christian and in other roles. The ensemble, including understudies, also includes Maria Elena Ramirez, Phillip Taratula, Devyn Wade, Justin Lang and Maya Sofia Enciso.
O’Connell and Withers are enthusiastic about their new adaptation being staged in the intimate White Theatre.
“I was so excited when Barry said it would be in that space,” O’Connell said. “That’s how Brenda and I always envisioned it.”
“The Globe had an instinct that it (the play) would work in that space specifically because of the tone we’ve taken with the adaptation,” added Withers. “Annie (director Tippe) is a font of creativity. She always has a great answer.”
Annie Tippe is the director of Brenda Withers’ “Cyrano” at the Old Globe. (The Old Globe)
Though the first adaptation of “Cyrano” has been produced in a variety of theater settings and didn’t necessarily have to be staged in the round, “It felt essential,” said O’Connell. “The play starts in a theater and it felt so right, when we were writing it, that we wanted (audiences) to be dropped into the center of the playing space.”
Both O’Connell and Withers, who is a founding member of the Harbor Stage Company on Cape Cod, are experienced actors who’ve performed in “Cyrano” productions.
O’Connell played the title role in their own play in 2019 in a Two River Theater/Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival co-production. Withers portrayed Roxane in a different adaptation by Michael Hollinger and Aaron Posner ,also called “Cyrano,” in 2011 at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.
Long before that as a playwright, Withers co-wrote and co-starred with Mindy Kaling in their 2002 comic play “Matt & Ben,” about Hollywood stars and lifelong best friends Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. That play, with Enciso as Matt and Alejandra Villanueva as Ben, made its San Diego debut earlier this year at New Village Arts in Carlsbad.
For Withers, friendship has played an important role this time around, too, in writing both “Cyrano” adaptations with O’Connell, whom she has known for more than 20 years.
“When you’re co-authoring,” she said, “It’s like a third writer is in the room, and that’s the two of you together. When you’re with your friend you’re not only committed to the art and to the story but you’re committed to them. You have to put a lot more thought into the way you discuss your differences.“All the battles were fought with a good spirit in this instance.”
One thing O’Connell and Withers agreed upon early on was to play down the appearance of Cyrano’s nose.
“When we were working on this (first) adaptation in 2017,” O’Connell said, “it was still de rigueur to have the big old prosthetic on the face. We both thought partly because of the minimalist nature of our task that the nose should be similarly stripped down – not that it’s not there, but that we don’t actually need to see it. It’s not really about the nose. It’s about whatever albatross around your neck is.
“I was like ‘I don’t want to see the nose. I want every person in the audience to be projecting what this nose looks like.’”
Following its Old Globe engagement, O’Connell and Withers’ “Cyrano” will be produced early next year by Trinity Repertory Company in Rhode Island. Both of their adaptations are still in play, with the second not canceling out the first.
“I don’t know which version it will be exactly,” Withers said. “That’s still in discussion.”
‘Cyrano’
When: Now in previews, through Wednesday. Opens Thursday and runs through Aug. 16. 7 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays
Where: Old Globe Theatre’s Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre, 1363 Old Globe Way, Balboa Park, San Diego
Tickets: $44 and up
Phone: 619-234-5623
Online: theoldglobe.org