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Douglas Hodge and Patrick Page face off in Roundabout’s scruffy revival

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

BROADWAY REVIEW

A hopelessly romantic classic ever since 1897, Edmond Rostand’s “Cyrano de Bergerac” tale of the swashbuckling Gascon poet with the big honker has long reigned as one of my sentimental favorites.

Derek Jacobi, Kevin Kline, Frank Langella and whoever starred in that flop Broadway musical version back in 1993 are among the Cyranos who I have had the varying pleasures of meeting in theaters over the years.

“Cyrano de Bergerac” again returns to Broadway at the American Airlines Theatre, where Roundabout Theatre Company’s production opened on Thursday. This time around, the heroic title figure is essayed by Douglas Hodge, who nabbed a Tony for playing the motherly drag queen in “La Cage aux Folles” a few seasons ago.

Talk about different types of French dressing!

A squat, middle-aged fellow rather than a dashing cavalier, Hodge’s Cyrano sports a prodigiously piggy snout, a nimble tongue and plenty of vigor. This Cyrano is effectively cheerful and gallant among his friends and foes, and amusingly shy when he speaks directly to his adored Roxane. If Hodge does not achieve the deep sense of pathos that some of his predecessors have sounded, he is never less than ardent when his expressing his feelings.

Contrasting very well against Hodge’s scruffy, scrappy hero is an urbane, silken-voiced Patrick Page as the wickedly aristocratic Comte de Guiche, who amusingly resembles Louis XIII. Their fleeting clashes spark the show’s best moments. Usually it’s the balcony sequence or the autumnal conclusion that one recalls most about a “Cyrano de Bergerac,” but here it’s whenever these two actors meet.

For no apparent reason, all of the play’s 17th-century French characters speak with English accents in Ranjit Bolt’s new adaptation, which strives hard to be earthy in its wordplay. Personally, I prefer a more lyrical approach to Rostand’s moonlit – some may say moonshine – saga of nobility and unrequited love, but Bolt relates the story well enough.

Director Jamie Lloyd supports the text with a purposefully roughhewn production. The acting is all very manly. No sissy stuff here aside from an occasional lace collar. The ensemble players are mostly loud and hearty revelers attended now and again by several lusty wenches and giggling nuns.