Cyrano's Complexity

Cyrano de Bergerac—premiering tomorrow at the Hudson Warehouse—is a tough play to classify. Unlike The Trojan Women (a tragedy) or Romeo and Juliet (a romance), Rostand’s play seems part romantic-comedy, part straight satirical farce and part epic tragedy. This chameleon flavor makes the play feel disconnected at times, but—more importantly, lends the play a sense of self-awareness that augments each of its seemingly disparate moods.

Cyrano himself is particularly emblematic of this, as one of the most prismatic figures of the stage. He is at once exalted for his heroism and a parody of the tragic hero (100 warriors slain!), at once honored for his principles and a parody of self-righteousness, at once a star-crossed lover and a parody of melodrama. Yet rather than betraying an inconsistency, these ambiguities serve as one of the play’s major strengths.

The many prisms through which we can view, for instance, Cyrano, notifies the audience that the playwright recognizes both the limitations and merits of each perspective. As a simply comic figure in the mold of Don Quixote, the protagonist’s struggles would be unlikely to interest us. Yet if we were simply meant to see him as an unflawed hero, the ideal Renaissance man victimized by an inhumane society, then Cyrano would become an unbelievable character, and lose his flawed charm. These subtle middle grounds are what make Cyrano a play of such enduring value.