"Great Performances" Cyrano de Bergerac (2008)

Director:

Matthew Diamond

Writers:

Edmond Rostand (play)
Anthony Burgess (translation and adaptation)

TV Series:

"Great Performances" (1970)

Original Air Date:

26 December 2008 (Season 37, Episode 8)

Genre:

Drama | Music | Musical

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Foreign Language Adaptation | Based On Play | Live Performance | Two Word Title | Manhattan New York City

Cast

Max Baker	...	Ragueneau
Stephen Balantzian	...	Gascony Cadet
Tom Bloom	...	Montfleury
Keith Eric Chappelle	...	Guard
Maclntyre Dixon	...	Capuchin / Jodelet / Gascony Cadet
Davis Duffield	...	Theatregoer's Son
Amefika El-Amin	...	Gascony Cadet
Peter J. Fernandez	...	Captain Carbon de Castel-Jaloux (as Peter Jay Fernandez)
Jennifer Garner	...	Roxane
Kate Guyton	...	A Food Seller
Ginifer King	...	Sister Claire
Kevin Kline	...	Cyrano de Bergerac
Carman Lacivita	...	Valvert
Piter Marek	...	Marquis de Brissaille
Euan Morton	...	Ligniere
Lucas Papaelias	...	Cook / Cadet
Leenya Rideout	...	Lady / Singer / Nun
Fred Rose	...	Poet
Chris Sarandon	...	De Guiche
Thomas Schall	...	Theatregoer
Alexander Sovronsky	...	Musician / Cook / Cadet
Daniel Stewart Sherman	...	A Musketeer
Daniel Sunjata	...	Christian de Neuvillette
Baylen Thomas	...	Gascony Cadet
John Douglas Thompson	...	Le Bret
Concetta Tomei	...	Roxane's Duenna
Nance Williamson	...	Ragueneau's wife

Directed by
Matthew Diamond

Writing credits
Edmond Rostand		(play)
Anthony Burgess		(translation and adaptation)

Produced by
Bonnie Comley	....	executive producer: Steller Productions
David Horn	....	executive producer: Thirteen/WNET, New York
Ellen Krass	....	producer (as Ellen M. Krass)
Stewart Lane	....	executive producer: Steller Productions (as Stewart F. Lane)
Morton Swinsky	....	producer (as Mort Swinsky)

Original Music by
Alexander Sovronsky

Film Editing by
Gary Bradley

Casting by
J.V. Mercanti

Production Design by
Tom Pye

Costume Design by
Gregory Gale

Production Management
Lesley Jill Nathan	....	executive in charge of production

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Rae Kraus	....	associate director

Stunts
Mark Deklin	....	fight director

Camera and Electrical Department
Donald Holder	....	lighting designer

Music Department
Jean-Baptiste Lully	....	ballet music
Lucas Papaelias	....	musician: guitar and drums
Leenya Rideout	....	vocal arrangements
Fred Rose	....	composer: Additional musical arrangements by
Fred Rose	....	musician: cellist
Alexander Sovronsky	....	musician: violin, mandolin, tin whistle, fife, drums

Other crew
Brit Cowan	....	assistant to director
David Leveaux	....	directed for stage
Iris Merlis	....	stage manager

Fred Rose
Barbara Walsh

Directed by
John Doyle
John Glenmeister		(episode "Man Who Married a French Wife, the")
Nick Havinga		(episode "Girls in Their Summer Dresses") (episode "Monument, The")

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Marion J. Caffey		creator
Daniel Ezralow		creator
Josh Groban		creator

Production Companies

• NHK
• NEP America (in association with)
• Stellar Productions

Distributors

• NHK (2008) (Japan) (TV) (subtitled) (premiere)
• Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) (2009) (USA) (TV) (on "Great Performances")
• Image Entertainment (2009) (USA) (DVD)

Runtime:

USA:143 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Company:

NHK

Trivia:

Japan broadcast earlier than US.

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: Lighting equipment can be seen when the camera pans to stage left at roughly an hour and forty-five minutes in, at the siege of Arras.

Movie Connections:

Version of Cyrano de Bergerac (1986) (TV)

Unfortunate casting results in a somewhat lackluster production

My first response to the character of Cyrano de Bergerac in this version of the play was, "what a jerk." He just seems like a terrible bully. This wasn't my response to the Jose Ferrer movie, but it's my response now, although I'm not sure how much of that has to do with Kline's performance and how much has to do with how my attitudes have changed since I was in college.

I'll get back to Kline, but first I have to speak of Jennifer Garner's off kilter performance.

I understand the temptation to put a more modern spin on an old play, and turn demur heroines into feisty fireballs, but Garner's performance feels far more appropriate to a production of Annie Get Your Gun than to Cyrano. The problem is that Garner's Roxanne is so brash and brassy that she seems neither like someone who would be admired by every courtly man she met nor like someone who would prize elegant prose; she seems more like someone who would judge a man's appeal by his skills in shootin' and wrastlin'.

It is ideal for the audience to fall in love with Roxanne; I never even liked her much.

As for Kline, his performance lacks the grand sweep of Ferrer's. He is a very low key Cyrano, and while once again it is understandable to want to play with a character's traditional representation, it just doesn't work. I think this is why he seems like such a bully at the beginning. By underplaying the part, he doesn't sweep you up in his grandiosity and wit. Cyrano needs to be so much bigger than life that he seems justifiably unbound by convention.

I think ultimately Cyrano de Bergerac is not a play that lends itself to revisionist performances. You can play Shakespearean characters many different ways because there is always an ambiguity to the characters; you can endlessly debate purpose and motive. Rostand's play is very straightforward - it's little more than an excuse for a lot of clever dialog - and the characters are not deeply drawn enough to warrant trying to make them anything other than their surface appearance. And a production of the play in which Roxanne is a stronger, more masculine force than Cyrano simply cannot work.

That being said, it's still a well written play with a lot of of witty dialog and an engaging story, so it is still reasonably enjoyable. And for all my objections, the ending was quite touching. But this could have been so much better.