Long before Cyrano de Bergerac became shorthand for the fellow with the enormous nose who writes another man’s love letters, there was a real Cyrano.
Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac was a 17th century French soldier, swordsman and writer whose rather remarkable life gave playwright Edmond Rostand the raw material for one of theater’s great romantic heroes.
Rostand’s “Cyrano de Bergerac” premiered in Paris in 1897 and was an almost immediate sensation. At a time when theatrical fashions were beginning to turn toward realism, Rostand offered audiences something gloriously old-fashioned instead: comedy, impossible romance and a hero capable of defeating a roomful of men while simultaneously composing a ballad.
More than a century later, it still works.
And there is a delicious irony at the heart of Long Beach Shakespeare Company’s new production of Rostand’s romantic warhorse.
Director Renee Schwartz has devised an elaborate theatrical framework intended to show us a company of actors rehearsing the play, slowly transforming that rehearsal into a finished production.
Yet, the actors are so good, and Schwartz’s direction of them so assured, that by evening’s end, I found myself wishing she had simply trusted them to tell the story.
Because sometimes that is really all you need.
Rostand’s play is, after all, built upon one of theater’s most durable ideas: the heartbreaking distance between what we look like and what we believe ourselves to be.
At the center of it all is Paul D. Flores as Cyrano. Flores gives the production exactly the sort of strong central performance it requires. His Cyrano is intelligent, funny, wounded and enormously human. The famous nose is there, of course, but Flores never allows it to become the performance. Instead, it becomes what it should be — the outward manifestation of a man whose greatest enemy is his own certainty that he cannot be loved.
Julianne Holmquist makes a lovely Roxane, avoiding the trap of playing her merely as the beautiful object around which two men orbit. There is intelligence and emotional life here, which becomes especially important as the comedy gives way to the considerably more painful consequences of Cyrano’s deception.
Shane Weikel’s Christian provides an effective counterweight to Flores. The joke is cruelly simple. Christian has the face but not the words; Cyrano has all the words in the world but believes his face disqualifies him. Weikel understands that Christian must be more than handsome and dim if the triangle is to have any emotional weight.
Ryan Hollon brings authority and presence to Comte de Guiche, while Ren Warzecha’s Ragueneau supplies warmth and humor without pushing the character beyond the boundaries of Rostand’s world.
Schwartz has clearly worked carefully with this company. The language is accessible and the relationships are clear. Which brings me back to that framing device.
The conceit is that we are watching an acting troupe put “Cyrano” together. At first, we see something resembling rehearsal. Costume pieces gradually appear. The production becomes increasingly complete until, finally, we have arrived at the “real” performance.
Even the dog gets a journey.
Early on, its absence requires a stuffed-animal substitute. Eventually, the actual canine performer arrives and takes its rightful place in the proceedings.
I got it. In fact, I got it before reading the program note explaining it.
But I am also a student of theater and a theater practitioner, so perhaps I am precisely the audience member most likely to follow those breadcrumbs. For someone simply coming to see “Cyrano de Bergerac,” I wonder whether the device illuminates the play or unnecessarily asks them to keep track of another one happening on top of it.
It is a clever idea. There may even be the seed of an entirely different play here, a comedy about a small theater company desperately attempting to mount “Cyrano de Bergerac” in a room barely large enough to contain Cyrano’s nose. That is actually an idea worth pursuing.
I’m just not convinced Rostand needs to carry it around on his back.
I know the challenge of putting big plays into little rooms. I have spent much of my theatrical life watching — and making — big shows in spaces seemingly designed for much smaller ones. Sometimes, however, the solution is not to explain the limitations — but to embrace them.
Imagine this same production stripped almost bare: a black box, actors dressed largely in black, perhaps only Flores (as this production has him do) appearing completely transformed as Cyrano, with period costume and that magnificent nose.
Would we require anything else? I’m not sure we would. Because whenever Schwartz’s production stops reminding us that we are watching actors putting on “Cyrano” and simply allows those actors to be Cyrano, Roxane, Christian and the rest, something wonderful happens.
Rostand’s play emerges. The poetry works. The comedy works. And, most importantly, the heartbreak works.
That may ultimately be the finest compliment I can give this cast and its director. Beneath an idea I found more complicated than necessary is a beautifully acted, carefully directed “Cyrano de Bergerac” waiting patiently to be trusted.
It’s fun when theater comes with tricks, concepts and outward beauty. Yet, sometimes, all it really needs is good actors, with beautiful words, telling us the truth.
‘Cyrano de Bergerac’
When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday through Aug. 29.
Where: Helen Borgers Theatre, 4250 Atlantic Ave.
Tickets: general admission, $30; student admission, $20.
Information: lbshakespeare.org.