Review: Trinity Rep's Cyrano de Bergerac

Cyrano de Bergerac is Trinity Rep.'s final production of a tremendously, fulfilling theater season.  It is also Amanda Dehnert's final production as Acting Artistic Director.  Ms. Dehnert carried Trinity through its transition of Artistic Directors.   Oscar Eustis left Trinity last year to take over the reigns from George C. Wolfe at The Public Theater in New York.

 

 Trinity's new Artistic Director, Curt Columbus, has arrived with an ambitious slate of shows for next season that includes familiar shows, A Delicate Balance, Our Town, The Fantasticks and the perennial favorite, A Christmas Carol, along with 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist, The Clean House.  William Petersen will also join Trinity Rep. next season for its production of A Dublin Carol.

 

The transition has left Ms. Dehnert in the unenviable position of fulfilling Oscar's vision while holding a place for Curt.  Audiences will be pleased to know that Ms. Dehnert will return to Trinity next season to direct The Fantasticks.

 

This production is of Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac was originally published in 1897.  Trinity uses the 1980's Anthony Burgess translation and adaptation of the work.  For lack of a biography of Anthony Burgess in the program, my companion and I were left wondering if it was translated and adapted by THE Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange, or Anthony Burgess, some other guy.  It is, in fact, a translation and adaptation by THE Anthony Burgess.

 

The opening set looks like gallows, with a platform and possibly a hangman's noose hanging from the ceiling, which had me thinking that I had completely mis-remembered the play.  Troubadours appear and quickly fill in the broad strokes of the play's time and place.  Paris. 1650.

 

Mauro Hantman, who is rarely off-stage during the entire production, portrays the title role of Cyrano.  In Mr. Hantman's hands and with Ms. Dehnert's vision, Cyrano is a poet and soldier who is brave in the face of everything, but a women. 

 

Cyrano is in love with Roxane (Angela Brazil), who is in love with comely Christian (Noah Brody).  The audience has to wait until the very end of the play to know that the story is classic tragedy. 

 

 The production feels, at times, like a light-hearted comedy, with Fred Sullivan, as de Guiche, playing an over-the-top comic, evil villain. Sullivan is a gifted, physical, comedian that can break up an audience with just the roll of his eyes, a single syllable or simply scrunching up of his face.

 

Barbara Meek brings mischievous levity to the production as Roxane's biscuit-snatching chaperone, The Duenna.

The character, Ragueneau, is a possibly clueless baker, who is a supporter of the arts.  He feeds hapless, starving poets, with hopes of being accepted as one himself. In the role, William Damkoehler makes the audience think that perhaps Ragueneau is not as clueless as everyone thinks he is.

 

The ensemble has the job of playing multiple characters each. Pickpockets, Fops, Musketeers and Nuns pepper the second and third tier stories. Charlie E. Hudson III, in his first Trinity show, gives a notable performance in the ensemble. To be noticed in an ensemble that includes terrific actresses, Janice Duclos and Phyllis Kay, is an achievement.

 

Cyrano also feels like a storybook love story with a hero (two, actually), heroine, and their trusted friend, Le Bret (Brian McEleney) supporting them.  There are long, often comic, soliloquies delivered by both Cyrano and Cyrano through Christian.

 

In the end, this is a tragedy, in which, if the audience has empathy for the title chararcter, should be heart-breaking.

When the play ended, I thought to myself that it must be difficult to develop a comic love story that eventually leads to tragedy. 

In the final act, the passage of time and its effect on the characters; the time during which Cyrano devotes himself to visiting Roxane in the convent is presented, but not fully explored or conveyed.  The impact of the tragic, final, scene of Cyrano was not realized.

 

The production would benefit from an additional intermission, to break up the story in more manageable pieces and smaller periods of time. The play is in five acts, with only one intermission.   Squeaking chairs, as the audience shifts and squirms, can be distracting, not only to the actors, but the audience as well.

 

Trinity has an unmatched reputation for scenic design and sets.  This company has, arguably, the most brilliant, creative designers in regional theater.  This set was not up to Trinity's usual, high standards.  It was unnecessarily bland and looked temporary, as if it was going to be broken down after just a couple of performances. At Trinity, I don't expect to see walls shake when doors shut.

Certainly an entertaining evening of theater, but when taken in the context of Trinity's recent productions, Cyrano is not as creative or inspired as I know it could be.

 

Cyrano de Bergerac runs through June 11, 2006

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