Cyrano de Bergerac

Answer this question quickly and without recourse to your cell-phone: when was Edmond Rostand's "Cyrano de Bergerac" first performed? If you are like me, you will imagine that the play is the product of the 17th century or, perhaps, the age of Mozart. In fact, Rostand's show opened in 1897 and is a product of the Belle Epoque. Thus, it is more kin to Puccini, Chekhov, and Ibsen than to Moliere and Racine. Sprawling and a bit shapeless, "Cyrano de Bergerac" meanders aimlessly during its first half and, then, amps up the romantic spectacle and sentimentality after the intermission, ending with a tear-jerking death scene that is shamelessly protracted, and, I'm afraid, ridiculously effective -- cousin to the death of Mimi in "La Boheme" or Little Nell in "The Old Curiosity Shop." Constructed in five acts, the play contains a mix of humor and melodrama that seems clearly derived from Shakespeare although "Cyrano de Bergerac," an ode to nobility and honor, is, ultimately, anti-Shakespearian in paying homage to a value about which the Bard of Avon was intensely skeptical -- consider, for instance, Falstaff's mordant catechism to honor in "Henry IV, Part One". The character of Cyrano is an example of a larger-than-life figure, someone like King Lear or Hamlet, that no single actor can effectively impersonate on stage. The actor always seems too puny for the role and this was certainly true in the Chicago Shakespeare Company's production of the play that I saw on the Navy Pier on November 2, 2013. In this show, the part was played by Harry Groener and, during the rather haphazard first half, he seemed too conversational and casual, a bit too nonchalant. The famous balcony scene in which Cyrano speaks in his voice to Roxanne is the play's watershed and the beginning of its turn from Brechtian epic comedy toward sentiment and tragedy and, from that point forward, I thought Groener improved and seemed to grow into the role. Groener's make-up was not grotesque and he cuts a handsome figure on the stage with the result that Cyrano's inferiority complex about his appearance (and his concomitant over-compensation with rhetoric and sword-play) seems puzzling and ill-motivated. But this is, perhaps, not too much of a flaw -- all of us know handsome, even beautiful, people who are somehow persuaded that they are ugly. Roxanne, as the object of Cyrano's love, also poses difficulties. Rostand is not effective at writing for female characters -- they are all stereotyped duennas and wenches -- and the part of Roxanne seems undeveloped. She is a prize that doesn't seem worth the effort of winning her and doesn't possess the charm and gravitas of a Shakepearian heroine. The melancholy last act is, as always, wildly effective and leaves the audience in helpless tears. The whole thing is a more than a bit manipulative. Cyrano's slavish commitment to honor, something that we are met to applaud, viewed objectively, is self-centered and destructive to everyone around him. But applaud audiences do, rising to their feet to cheer and wipe the tears from their eyes.