Theater Reviews

May 2, 2007 - Nevada Rep's "Cyrano de Bergerac" at the Redfield Proscenium is long, but superb

By By Jack Neal

In our modern world of sound bites, to have a theater company in our midst with the courage to re-create Edmond Rostand's lovely, but long, play about one of the world's smoldering romantics, Cyrano de Bergerac, and do him full justice, is indeed a thrill.

The Nevada Repertory Company's "Cyrano de Bergerac," directed brilliantly by Jim Bernardi, opened last Friday night (4/27/07) at the Redfield Proscenium Theatre on the University of Nevada, Reno campus. It's a beautiful production loaded with style, grace, lavish costumes, entrancing sets, ravishing lighting, and hypnotic performances.

The story of romance is well known. Cyrano, the rapturous poet with a life marked by an enormous nose, finds love too remote to be his. His impassioned love for the gorgeous Roxane is repressed because of her infatuation with Christian, a good looking young officer whose challenged language skills prevent him from pursuing the glacially cool Roxane until his good looks combine with Cyrano's superb words.

Ah, to fall in love with both body and the music of speech only to discover the deception of it all, when it's too late. Filled with wit, pathos and the tragedy of lost love, "Cyrano de Bergerac" is a bold cry for how life should be, not how it is. In this lusty, tempestuous classical version, Cyrano is played to exquisite excess by Ryan Palomo. Palomo creates an entirely three-dimensional Cyrano, a gadfly of a personality who carries a production that really does not need carrying at all it's that good.

Playing the other man, Christian de Neuvillette, Zachary L.J. Bortor is properly goodlooking and just as properly tongue tied when it comes to saying the right romantic thing. A Roxane of poise, beauty and reasonable magnetism is a necessary ingredient for bringing the forces of Rostand's romantic comedy into focus, and an assured Hana Freeman is the perfect casting choice that makes this "Cyrano" plausible. Freeman is captivating.

Captivating, too, is the large cast of players who surround the play's love-lorn leads – there's not a misplaced portrayal in the lot - and make Nevada Rep's "Cyrano" a theatrical achievement.

The production's delightful look is provided by the handsome scenic designs of Michael Fernbach, enhanced nicely by Larry Walters' lighting. With richly created and executed costumes by Michelle Spencer Davidson, the show's look is complete and exquisite.

Much to everyone's credit this often comic material is played for keeps, not for laughs, which gives this "Cyrano de Bergerac" a pathos and poignancy – in addition to laughs – that makes the heart grow constantly fonder.

The Nevada Repertory Company's "Cyrano de Bergerac" can be seen at the Redfield Proscenium Theatre, 1664 North Virginia Street, Reno, Nevada, April 27, 28, May 2, 3, 4, 5 at 7:30 p.m. and May 6 (2007) at 1:30 p.m. For information go on line at www.unr.edu/arts or call 775-784-4ART.