French playwright Edmond Rostand’s story about a brilliant man endowed with a large nose is a work of fiction. However, Cyrano did actually exist. In 1897, famous actor Coquelin, asked Rostand to write a play about the 17th-century writer. At Quintessence, Cyrano De Bergerac is “freely adapted” by Martin Crimp, and directed by Alex Burns.
Though the audience is burdened with tedious and repetitive music during seating, when the lights go down and the play begins, we are thrust into a world of brash energy, with highly talented and accomplished actors playing their parts with vigor. Cyrano is played to perfection by J Hernandez. A swordsman and poet, Cyrano is the outrageously aggressive toast and terror of Paris. He picks fights, improvises rhyme, and fears not the powerful and the influential. There is only one area where Cyrano’s self confidence falls away – he’s not a raging success with the ladies, due to his belief that his big nose makes him too ugly to be romantically acceptable. To his misfortune he falls in love with his cousin, Roxane, played to the hilt by bright-eyed, brilliant Erica Lynn Bridge. He disguises his love for her by writing love letters for Christian.
This show is a keeper.
[Quintessence Theatre Group at Sedgwick Theater, 7137 Germantown Ave., (Mt. Airy)] September 25–October 20, 2024; quintessencetheatre.org/cyrano
Two hours and fifteen minutes with a 15 minute intermission.
Playwright: Edmund Rostand
Freely Adapted by Martin Crimp
Producing Artistic Director: Alex Burns
Roxanne: Erica Lynn Bridge
Ligniere/Ensemble: Lee Thomas Cortopassi
Leila Ragueneau: Janis Dardaris
De Guiche: Tim Dugan
Velvert/Ensemble: Gabriel Elmore
Montefleury/Ensemble: Liam Gerard
Cyrano: J Hernandez
Christian: Daniel Chase Miller
Le Bret/Ensemble: Kelechi Udenkwo
Marie Louise/Ensemble: Laiah Westlyn