I went this weekend to see Cyrano de Bergerac performed by the Ruskin Group Theater in Santa Monica. It was effectively staged, with Olivia D’Abo particularly good as Roxane. But something of the magic was lacking, and I think cause was not any failure on the part of the company, but rather in something deeper, something at the heart of today’s art scene. Modern artists and critics have so profoundly lost touch with Rostand’s world—and generally with the Romanticists’ approach to man and meaning—that they cannot even take Cyrano de Bergerac seriously as work of art. And as a result, their approach to the play often leaves audiences unable fully to understand and appreciate Rostand’s masterpiece.
First, the translations. Rostand’s complete plays were last translated into English in 1921. (His volumes of lyric poetry have never been translated. Update: My error; the 1921 Norman translation does not include The Last Night of Don Juan.) Although Cyrano has been translated many times, Brian Hooker’s 1923 version is still the standard, and justly so. But some consider it outdated, and the Ruskin Group relied on the 1983 translation by Anthony Burgess, as did the recent Broadway hit starring Kevin Kline. Burgess’ translation is a failure bordering on disgrace. Believing that Hooker’s version “never works on the stage,” Burgess went further than simply translating; he also altered scenes—removing, for example, the sequence in Act IV when Roxane appears on the battlefield at Arras, and adding his own explanation of Roxane’s frustration at Christian in Act III! Burgess thought changes like these would “make it more acceptable to a fairly indifferent public.” He hoped his alterations would “add a human substratum” to Roxane’s character and Rostand’s work. In short, Burgess did not believe in the dramatic logic of Cyrano de Bergerac, and chose to animate his own zombie version of the play. Although some of his more extreme alterations were later repaired, and the Ruskin Group did not follow them all, his insincerity still pervades his text.
That insincerity is not surprising. The contemporary artistic community—with some heroic exceptions—finds heroism and the nobility of character that Cyrano embodies practically incomprehensible; at best a pleasant fantasy, at worst a psychological disorder. Consequently, directors and actors are more willing to evoke the audience’s sympathy for Cyrano than its admiration for his virtue.
In the play’s original form, Rostand depends on these two distinct reactions, and in fact, uses the admiration as a basis for the sympathy. Cyrano de Bergerac is a work of incredible sophistication and subtlety, and Rostand pitches his character at the very highest level. Here is a man who believes without any particle of hesitation in the possibility of grandeur; when he says “J’ai décidé d'être, en tout, pour tout”—I have decided to be admirable, in everything, for everything—he truly means it. He is a fearless, supremely dignified, noble character; his spirit is outsized…. And thus our first impression of him is the ballad/duel of Act I, and his fight against 100 men at the Porte de Nesle.
But Cyrano is not really fearless. The one thing he fears is the heartbreak of disappointment should Roxane spurn his love. In fact, when his friend Le Bret suggests Cyrano tell Roxane of his love, he says no, because “c’est la seule chose au monde que je craigne!”—Hooker renders “That is the one thing in this world I fear.” Cyrano is only afraid of that one thing, not of anything else. Still, the audience understands this fear, and in the heartbreaking scene in which Cyrano confronts Roxane at Raganeau’s pastry shop, Rostand ingeniously intertwines the feelings of admiration and sympathy.
The audience’s admiration for Cyrano’s bravery is critical as a balance and foundation for its sympathy toward his loneliness. If translated or played wrongly, Cyrano can come off as a bully, a boaster, a ridiculous self-obsessive. In some subtle ways, this is what the Anthony Burgess translation does.
For example, when the duel at the theater is completed, Cyrano is offered some food, but he can’t afford it, having given away all his money to pay back the theater. But rather than offend the girl who offers him the food, Cyrano accepts from her a single grape, half a macaroon, and a glass of water, then kisses the girl’s hand. While this is going on, Le Bret says “Mais c’est stupide!”
Burgess simplistically translates this as “This is stupid!”—a line pronounced in a less than friendly way by John Douglas Thompson in the Kevin Kline performance. But Le Bret cannot actually hold Cyrano in contempt; he’s Cyrano’s very best friend—the only man to whom Cyrano confesses his secret love for Roxane. Le Bret respects and loves Cyrano, as do all the soldiers in the play. A better translation would be Gertrude Hall’s “This comes near being silly!” or Hooker’s affectionate “Old idiot!” Burgess, by contrast, leaves us with the idea that the two don’t quite get along—with a tension accentuated by what in Burgess’ translation becomes Cyrano’s bitter accusation that Le Bret is a fawning, unprincipled man eager to make friends at the expense of his own principles.
Directors, too, are at times tone-deaf about Cyrano’s bravery and pain. The conversation at the pastry shop in Act II may be Rostand’s greatest accomplishment as a writer. In the space of a few seconds, we see Cyrano turn 180 degrees emotionally, from ecstasy that Roxane may love him—to heartbreak when he realizes she loves Christian. This is mostly accomplished without Cyrano actually saying any words (only “ah”), and all, of course, in rhyming couplets. Yet the scene has a dimension that is lost if we do not respect Cyrano’s nobility. When Cyrano discovers that Roxane loves Christian, his reaction is not fear—it is not cowardice that keeps him silent about his own feelings. It is his love for Roxane and his devotion to her happiness. That is what accounts for the crushing tragedy of the final lines in this scene:
Rox: Cent hommes ! Quel courage !
Cyr: Oh ! j’ai fait mieux depuis.
Hooker translates:
Rox: A hundred men! What courage!
Cyr: Oh! I have done better since.
(Humbert Wolfe translates “I have been braver since.”) It’s crucial for us to admire Cyrano by this time, in order to understand that he really has been braver since. It would have been simple to spill out his own feelings to the unsuspecting Roxane, barging in on her love for Christian—love that Cyrano is in no position to judge, and is too honorable to disrupt. Rostand’s point here is not simply to make us sympathize with Cyrano’s pain—it is to make us see his devotion to idealism, his self-discipline, and the genuineness of his love for Roxane. Cyrano’s refusal to tell Roxane of his love is a sign of his strength, not of his weakness. And, again, we see this all unfold in a scene in which Cyrano pronounces virtually no words—a brilliant work of poetry and dramatic irony. Yet in the Ruskin Group’s performance, these two lines were omitted entirely.
Is it really necessary, as Burgess claimed, to make this play “more acceptable to a fairly indifferent public”? I do not think so. Audiences have never been indifferent to Cyrano de Bergerac; the play has been a consistent success in the United States since its very first appearance. Audiences have just about always taken Cyrano to their hearts—Jose Ferrer and Gerard Depardieu were showered with praise and awards for their film versions.
No, it is not the public that is indifferent to Cyrano, but the artistic elite, steeped in naturalism and anti-idealistic drama and anti-heroic literature. The New York Times’ positive review of the Kevin Kline production, for example, was interwoven with obligatory scoffing: “silvery hokum,” “a glass of moonshine,” “popcorn entertainment,” a production that “may not make a case for Edmond Rostand’s plumed war horse as an immortal work of high art”—a play that “appeals to the enduring hopeful adolescent in us,” but that we’ve most likely “outgrown.” When drama is produced by writers and critics who regard the heights of heroic idealism as trite and immature, it is little wonder that genuine heroism is so rare in our drama—heroism, that is, without some self-undercutting, “humanizing” winks that help comfort those who don’t believe in ideals by telling them “don’t take any of this too seriously.”
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