STAGE WEST: "Cyrano" at Old Globe Theatre

Left to right: Cailen Fu, Michael Braun and Max Monnig in "Cyrano."                   Photo by Rich Soublet II

            Once it ultimately gets its tongue out of its cheek, Jason O’Connell and Brenda Withers’ “Cyrano” is an affectionate and affecting reduction of the epic play by Edmond Rostand, which was written in rhyming couplets and for more than 40 characters.
               For the first one-third of O’Connell and Withers’ adaptation, which was commissioned by Old Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein specifically for the intimate Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre in the round, the emphasis is on physical and even quite broad comedy. The humor is sustained once the love triangle between Cyrano (Michael Braun), Roxanne (Cailen Fu) and Christian (Max Monnig) coalesces, but there’s a decided shift in tone toward what made Rostand’s play the timeless work that it is.
            It’s the humor and the more colloquial language employed by the characters that honors the production’s stated setting (“France, 1640 by way of San Diego, 2026) while also freshening the Cyrano story for contemporary appreciation. Though the cast of five (three of them playing multiple roles) is garbed in period attire (by costume designer Haydee Zelideth) the look is almost incidental – the characters may be melodramatic at times, but they speak not not like the French of the mid-17th century.
            Even more welcome is the playwrights’ intention not to force some conspicuous awkward schnoz on Cyrano’s face. It’s more important – and less distracting – that Cyrano knows it’s there, that audiences know it’s there, that Rostand’s original inquiries of beauty and perception be respected and not rendered ham-handed by prosthetics or makeup.
            Largely the events and emotions of the traditional “Cyrano de Bergerac” tale are intact at the Globe in this O’Connell and Withers’ second economical adaptation of Rostand’s play. Most critically the plight of Cyrano himself, whose abiding love for the lovely and elusive Roxanne is destined to go unrequited and who finds himself writing letters that speak his own heart on behalf of another, the handsome but tongue-tied soldier Christian. In this, Fu, Monnig and especially the stentorian-voiced Braun make an appealing and sympathetic trio. There is no antagonist here. All three characters are propelled by the power of love. The tragedy of the story is that Cyrano is so paralyzed by what he believes are his irredeemable physical flaws that he cannot pursue Roxanne in his own right.
            The more this sad reality sinks in the more involving is the Globe production, directed by Annie Tippe (last year’s “Huzzah!”) and given many light and beautiful touches of stagecraft in the White as it proceeds toward its rending conclusion.
            Maria Elena Ramirez and Phillip Taratula round out the small ensemble in various roles, most of them full-throated and at times cartoonish, but as the story unfolds they seem to offer cathartic presence. More restrained humor comes with a balcony scene in which a concealed Cyrano is prompting the hapless but earnest Christian with just the right words of love to make “their” desired lady all but swoon. (One 20th-century adaptation: Post man Newman doing the same for gawky Kramer, in pursuit of a girlfriend of Jerry’s in the “Seinfeld” episode “The Soul Mate.” But poet Cyrano’s prose is the real deal, and of course Roxanne cannot resist.)
            That’s only one instance of the Cyrano plight, the speaking of one’s love alas for another, borrowed from Rostand, whose play was first produced in 1897. The truth is, love unexpressed or hindered by self-doubt as much as by circumstance has been a tragedy ever since, as it certainly was before. Having much fun with the fringes of the story as O’Connell and Withers do here does not minimize that tragedy. They certainly did not intend it to do so.
            Audiences expecting a sweeping “Cyrano de Bergerac” with posturing hero donning comical hooter be advised: That is not “Cyrano.”
            As the French will say: “Vive le difference.”
            “Cyrano” runs through Aug. 16 at the Old Globe’s Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre in Balboa Park.