Customer Reviews

Cyrano De Bergerac (translation by Anthony Burgess) [VHS]

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This video is based on the Royal Shakespeare Company's stage production of Cyrano that ran in London, New York and Washington DC 1983-1985. I saw the London and New York productions each several times, and, as phenomenal as they were, the video is in many ways better, if only because this version is more permanent.

I love this play. I've seen many renditions and adaptations of Cyrano over the years, and this one is by far the best I've seen. I'm a huge fan of Sir Derek Jacobi's work, and this rendition of Cyrano showcases his work at its pinnacle. Sinead Cusack is glorious in this production as the love-struck Roxane, John Carlisle is just dark enough as DeGuiche, Pete Postlethwaite is over the top as Cyrano's sidekick, Rageneau, Tom Mannion intelligently provides a beautiful and downright stupid-sounding Christian. The rest of the cast is equally fine (there just isn't time enough to list them all: sorry, Cast, you're all terrific). But of course this show is about Cyrano and Sir Derek keeps him and his large but not obscene proboscis in the center of the viewer's attention from Cyrano's first chandelier-swinging entrance to his bittersweet death in the nunnery yard.

If you can find it, get this video, watch it and drool. Why the distribution company let it go OP is beyond me.

Cyrano De Bergerac (translation by Anthony Burgess) [VHS]

I emphatically agree with all three previous reviewers that this production should be available on DVD! Moreover, why not also republished in VHS, since not every lover of great drama has a DVD player? Besides Derek Jacobi's striking Cyrano, this performance has the prettiest Roxane, the handsomest Christian, and the most delightful Ragueneau I've seen. That's as compared with the 1949 American film starring Jose Ferrer, the 1992 French film starring Gerard Depardieu, the 1972 TV production starring Peter Donat, and the 2009 TV production starring Kevin Kline.

Another, very important, advantage is that this Cyrano is much longer than the others. The complete play would probably take at least 3.5 hours, not counting intermissions. You doubt that? This production, with substantial cuts in 4 of its 5 acts, lasts 176 minutes = almost 3 hours. Restoring the cuts would easily add 35 minutes. The other productions are even shorter. The Kline Cyrano lasts 141 minutes; the Depardieu, 137; the Donat, 130; the Ferrer, 112 minutes. Moreover, from the time the two movies take, you have to subtract the time they use to portray events that are mentioned but not dramatized in the play.

Why is length important? Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac is the most famous French play of the last two centuries: a superb work of art. Every cut impedes or reduces the splendid vision the play creates. Every production that sacrifices part of the play, presuming that audiences will not stay or pay for the whole, robs everyone of the beauties that only the whole possesses. No one would expect a great symphony or painting to retain its greatness if a quarter or half of its notes, or strokes, were scrapped. One of Cyrano's most quoted speeches, the "No Thank You" Speech, is an eloquent refusal to compromise, for worldly success, the beauties a mind creates.

I am not as enthusiastic as L. A. Leporati (2/22/08), and N. B. Delain (4/25/04) about Jacobi's portrayal of Cyrano. I have sometimes liked his acting very much, playing Shakespeare's King Richard II in the 1978 BBC production; and much less, playing Shakespeare's Hamlet, in the 1980 BBC production. Jacobi's Cyrano may be the unhappiest Cyrano I've seen. In Act I, though enjoying his duel + ballad, he is mostly grim or sour in the preceding scenes. In contrast, Donat's Cyrano enjoys his own flood of intelligence and wit in his insistent but playful encounters, first with the actor Montfleury and their audience, then with the busybody who stares petrified at his nose, and then with the viscount whose intervention inspires the famous "Nose Speech".

Jacobi's Act I Cyrano has almost no fun being Cyrano. However, he is certainly emphatic, in speech and action, vs. Montfleury, the audience, the busybody, his challenger, and his friend, Le Bret. When Roxane's request for a meeting kindles a hope that she loves him, he becomes an interact tornado against the 100 men lying in wait for Ligniere. When, in Act II, Roxane tells him she is in love, but with another man, whom she wants him to protect, he is devastated. Indeed, this production includes a speech to Le Bret, often omitted, which exalts hating and being hated, and in which Jacobi's Cyrano nearly breaks down. When he finally gets his chance, in Act III, to speak--not just write, but speak--his love for Roxane to her, his emotions are breathtakingly powerful and beautifully expressed.

In Acts II - IV, when Jacobi's Cyrano is enjoying himself, he is often either planning to lie, or lying. Take, for examples: when he is persuading Christian to join him in a plan to deceive Roxane, by making her believe that the source of the love letters she receives and the speeches she hears below her balcony is Christian; or, when conversing with Roxane at the beginning of Act III about the letters and speeches of Christian; and of course, when ecstatically making love to her in the balcony scene. (The love here expressed is passionately true, but the pretense that it comes from Christian is radically false.) Moreover, Cyrano's false claims to have fallen from the moon, and to have invented seven means of flying to it, are such fun that De Guiche is successfully entranced for the necessary minutes. In Act IV, Cyrano is happy to write, and to risk his life posting, two love letters a day to Roxane, pretending that they come from Christian.

There is a conflict in Cyrano's character between his enjoyment of lying, and his hatred of falsehood. This conflict seems unresolved. Early in the last Act, we learn from Le Bret that Cyrano is continuing to make enemies by attacking "false saints, false nobles" and "false heroes." At the end of the Act, the dying Cyrano lunges with his sword against "my old enemies -- Falsehood, Prejudice, Compromise, Cowardice." During the play, when Cyrano attacks these sins, the attacks seem directed at other people, not at himself. But at the end, is he recognizing and fighting these faults as also his own? Apparently not. Nowhere in the play does he acknowledge, let alone apologize for, his addiction to lying. In the last scene, he battles his "old enemies" as external, not internal.

The Ferrer and Donat Cyranos differ from the Jacobi and Kline Cyranos in their choice of translator. The two former chose Brian Hooker; the latter two, Anthony Burgess. I find Hooker's translation much better: clear, succinct, powerful, noble, beautiful, and faithful. For a sample of Hooker's work, compared with Burgess', here is a section from Cyrano's "No, Thank You" speech, first by Rostand, then by Hooker, then by Burgess:

[ROSTAND] Rêver, rire, passer, être seul, être libre,
Avoir l'oeil qui regarde bien, la voix qui vibre,
Mettre, quand il vous plaît, son feutre de travers
Pour un oui, pour un non, se battre,--ou faire un vers !
Travailler sans souci de gloire ou de fortune,
A tel voyage, auquel on pense, dans la lune!
N'écrire jamais rien qui de soi ne sortît,
Et modeste d'ailleurs, se dire: mon petit,
Soit satisfait des fleurs, des fruits, même des feuilles,
Si c'est dans ton jardin à toi que tu les cueilles !

[HOOKER] . . . To sing, to laugh, to dream,
To walk in my own way and be alone,
Free with an eye to see things as they are,
A voice that means manhood -- to cock my hat
Where I choose -- at a word, a Yes, a No,
To fight -- or write. To travel any road
Under the sun, under the stars, nor doubt
If fame or fortune lie beyond the bourne --
Never to make a line I have not heard
In my own heart; yet, with all modesty
To say: "My soul, be satisfied with flowers,
With fruit, with weeds even; but gather them
In the one garden you may call your own."

[BURGESS] Free of the filthy world, to sing, to be
Blessed with a voice vibrating virility,
Blessed with an eye equipped for looking at
Things as they really are, cocking my hat
Where I please, at a word, at a deed, at a yes or no,
Fighting or writing: this is the true life. So
I go along any road under my moon,
Careless of glory, indifferent to the boon
Or bane of fortune, without hope, without fear,
Writing only the words down that I hear
Here - and saying, with a sort of modesty,
'My heart, be satisfied with what you see
And smell and taste in your own garden - weeds,
As much as fruit and flowers.

Without a doubt,THE best Cyrano I've seen! The acting, the production; without equal!

I saw this RSC version of Cyrano de Bergerac on Broadway back in the 1980's with Sir Derek Jacobi and Sinead Cusack in tandem with Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. I was overwhelmed by the performances at the time and was thrilled when the play came out on VHS. I cannot emphasize how incredible Sir Derek Jacobi was in this role (he never gives anything less than a great performance!). I've seen just about everything he's ever done on the stage both in New York and in London. How could this video not be available on DVD? It is one for the ages!

I love this so much! Sir Derek Jacobi casts a spell on me with his portrayal of Cyrano. His acting gives a caress to each line with just enough emotion. He is truly a master of his art. I also love the translation by Anthony Burgess. Beautiful word choice. Edmund Rostand's tale is completely captivating and means so much to me. I wish this performance were available on dvd, but I am so grateful that I can have it at all. It has touched me in a way few things in my life have.