Cyrano de Bergerac

Edmond Rostand

Translated by Brian Hooker

Playwright and poet Edmond Rostand (1868–1918) was born in Marseille, France, into a wealthy and cultured family. He studied literature, philosophy, and law at the College Stanislas in Paris. Rostand wrote a number of critically and commercially successful plays, including Les Romanesques (1894), La Princess Lointaine (1895), La Samaritaine (1897), L’Aiglon (1901), and Chantecler (1910), but none of the others has proved as popular or enduring as Cyrano de Bergerac (1897).

Since its Paris debut, Cyrano de Bergerac has enjoyed popularity around the globe with stage productions featuring such well-known Shakespearean actors as Derek Jacobi and Christopher Plummer. A 2007 production in New York City starred Kevin Kline and Jennifer Garner. Cyrano has inspired a symphony, operas, a ballet, and several musicals. A number of children’s books and novels are loosely based on the play—for example, Big Nose Serrano, a series of gangster stories by Anatole France Feldman (1930), and Sway, a young adult novel by Kat Spears, published in 2014.

Cyrano de Bergerac was also made into at least one film during every decade of the twentieth century, beginning in 1900. Notable later film productions include the 1950 version starring José Ferrer, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor; a Japanese samurai film starring Toshiro Mifune titled Aru kengo no shogai (Life of an Expert Swordsman, 1959); an updated comedy called Roxanne starring Steve Martin, who also wrote the screenplay (1987); and a critically acclaimed French production starring Gérard Depardieu (1990).

KEY CONTEXT Although fictitious, the play is loosely based on a real-life character of the same name, Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac (1619–1655), who was born near Paris. His parents came from the town of Bergerac in southern France, and he added the title to give his name more stature. He entered military service, but after being wounded at the Siege of Arras in 1640, he left the military to study philosophy and mathematics. He eventually wrote plays of political satire and science fiction and inspired a number of other playwrights, most notably Edmond Rostand. The high spirits, intellectual gifts, and courage of Rostand’s Cyrano are all apparently based on the actual person of Savinien. And he did indeed have a very large nose.

While Cyrano de Bergerac was first produced in 1897, it is set in 1640, thus invoking an older romantic milieu and going against the naturalism that dominated French theater at the end of the nineteenth century. This period in French history was one of political and military turmoil and Rostand’s play offered some much-needed escapism — a return to the golden age of seventeenth-century France.

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The plays of this earlier time featured an idealized hero who not only was physically daring and intellectually gifted, but also embodied the code of chivalry. The concept of honor was a cardinal virtue for the classic romantic hero. The chivalric code, which developed within the medieval institution of knighthood between 1170 and 1220, was a system of rules that went beyond combat to include morality and character traits such as courtesy and honor. An integral part of the chivalric code was the idealization of women, who were the source of inspiration. Such a relationship, called courtly love, was almost never consummated but rather inspired respect, devotion, and an almost religious-like worship. Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac drew from this earlier period and reflected that chivalric code.

The Persons

The Crowd, Citizens, Marquis, Musketeers, Thieves, Pastrycooks, Poets, Cadets of Gascoyne, Actors, Violins, Pages, Children, Spanish Soldiers, Spectators, Intellectuals, Academicians, Nuns, etc.

(The first four Acts in 1640; the fifth in 1655.)

FIRST ACT A Performance at the Hôtel de Bourgogne.

SECOND ACT The Bakery of the Poets.

THIRD ACT Roxane’s Kiss.

FOURTH ACT The Cadets of Gascoyne.

FIFTH ACT Cyrano’s Gazette.