Long before Cyrano de Bergerac became shorthand for the fellow with the enormous nose who writes another man\u2019s love letters, there was a real Cyrano.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s great romantic heroes.<\/p>\n
Rostand\u2019s \u201cCyrano de Bergerac\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
More than a century later, it still works.<\/p>\n
And there is a delicious irony at the heart of Long Beach Shakespeare Company\u2019s new production of Rostand\u2019s romantic warhorse.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Yet, the actors are so good, and Schwartz\u2019s direction of them so assured, that by evening\u2019s end, I found myself wishing she had simply trusted them to tell the story.<\/p>\n
Because sometimes that is really all you need.<\/p>\n
Rostand\u2019s play is, after all, built upon one of theater\u2019s most durable ideas: the heartbreaking distance between what we look like and what we believe ourselves to be.<\/p>\n
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 \u2014 the outward manifestation of a man whose greatest enemy is his own certainty that he cannot be loved.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s deception.<\/p>\n
Shane Weikel\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Ryan Hollon brings authority and presence to Comte de Guiche, while Ren Warzecha\u2019s Ragueneau supplies warmth and humor without pushing the character beyond the boundaries of Rostand\u2019s world.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The conceit is that we are watching an acting troupe put \u201cCyrano\u201d together. At first, we see something resembling rehearsal. Costume pieces gradually appear. The production becomes increasingly complete until, finally, we have arrived at the \u201creal\u201d performance.<\/p>\n
Even the dog gets a journey.<\/p>\n
Early on, its absence requires a stuffed-animal substitute. Eventually, the actual canine performer arrives and takes its rightful place in the proceedings.<\/p>\n
I got it. In fact, I got it before reading the program note explaining it.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cCyrano de Bergerac,\u201d I wonder whether the device illuminates the play or unnecessarily asks them to keep track of another one happening on top of it.<\/p>\n
It is a clever idea. There may even be the seed of an entirely different play here,\u00a0 a comedy about a small theater company desperately attempting to mount \u201cCyrano de Bergerac\u201d in a room barely large enough to contain Cyrano\u2019s nose. That is actually an idea worth pursuing.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m just not convinced Rostand needs to carry it around on his back.<\/p>\n
I know the challenge of putting big plays into little rooms. I have spent much of my theatrical life watching \u2014 and making \u2014 big shows in spaces seemingly designed for much smaller ones. Sometimes, however, the solution is not to explain the limitations \u2014 but to embrace them.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Would we require anything else? I\u2019m not sure we would. Because whenever Schwartz\u2019s production stops reminding us that we are watching actors putting on \u201cCyrano\u201d and simply allows those actors to be Cyrano, Roxane, Christian and the rest, something wonderful happens.<\/p>\n
Rostand\u2019s play emerges. The poetry works. The comedy works. And, most importantly, the heartbreak works.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cCyrano de Bergerac\u201d waiting patiently to be trusted.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u2018Cyrano de Bergerac\u2019<\/p>\n
When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday through Aug. 29.<\/p>\n
Where: Helen Borgers Theatre, 4250 Atlantic Ave.<\/p>\n
Tickets: general admission, $30; student admission, $20.<\/p>\n