O.C. STAGE REVIEW : ‘Cyrano’ Has More Perfume Than Panache

The white plumes are waving at the Grove Shakespeare Festival Amphitheatre in Garden Grove. “Cyrano de Bergerac” is back.

This “Cyrano” is respectably wistful, but it’s not especially exciting. First-timers will appreciate the romance at the heart of the story. But they won’t laugh as much as some “Cyrano” audiences do. Nor will they see the kind of spectacle that justifies the three-hour length.

This focus on romance fulfills the intention of director Thomas F. Bradac. The Grove season this year has been dubbed “A Season of Romance.” (At least that’s what it says on the program cover; it’s hard to figure out how the festival’s other current show, “The Songs of War” at the indoor Gem Theatre, fits into this concept.)

Bradac signals his emphasis on the romance of “Cyrano” with the first image: Cyrano (Charles Lanyer) is silhouetted in profile against red light, smelling a rose with his jutting nose. Chuck Estes’ music is lush and heaving.

Cyrano then disappears until his grand entrance a few minutes later, and the rush of hectic activity in the initial crowd scene fills the stage. But Bradac interrupts the hubbub to introduce the young lovers, Roxane (Kamella Tate) and Christian (David Anthony Smith). The rest of the crowd freezes as they make their first appearances and their initial some-enchanted-evening eye contact, assisted by David C. Palmer’s lighting design.

In addition to establishing the evening’s priorities, these directorial touches help clarify the essential story. Then, when Cyrano makes his first public appearance by striding up the amphitheater’s center aisle, we’re to laugh. His next speeches are traditionally the funniest scenes in the play.

Lanyer’s Cyrano says the right words, but they don’t crackle through the night air as they should. Some of this can be attributed to Brian Hooker’s translation of Edmond Rostand’s verse. Some of the nose metaphors, for example, are too stuffy or puzzling (“portfolio,” “blue cucumber”).

But Lanyer’s delivery of these lines doesn’t help. They sound recited rather than spontaneous. And the duel with Valvert lacks variety and dash. (John Walcutt did the fight choreography.)

Lanyer is much more effective in the quieter moments later on, when he expresses his devotion to Roxane. Here is a gallant lover. But we don’t quite understand Cyrano’s public charisma; we don’t get the grand sweep of his personality.

One would expect an alfresco production to reverse the priorities, to do better with the bigger moments instead of the smaller ones. But in fact, the night sky overhead lends lyricism to the tender spots in the script--one of the best moments is at the end of Act I, when Cyrano, front and center and bearing a fluttering flag, pauses to comment on the loveliness of Paris in moonlight.

Yet the human-made spectacle seems somewhat reduced. This may be due to the capabilities of the stage, as well as to the desire to keep the show moving at the expense of changing scenery. Still, it’s clear that D. Martyn Bookwalter’s one set is more appropriate for some of the five scenes than it is for others.

Bookwalter’s unicorn gargoyles reflect Cyrano’s preoccupation with his own unusual protuberance--a clever addition to the imagery of the play. But the gargoyles and the sturdy background wall of Romanesque arches look distinctly out of place in a bakery and on the battlefield.

The battle scene is especially artificial; we don’t feel the danger that Cyrano is in. And because Roxane doesn’t bother to bring her customary feast to the soldiers when she sneaks through the enemy lines, her character is somewhat diminished. She becomes merely lovestruck rather than an adventurous lady bountiful for the starving troops.

Tate is nevertheless a sly Roxane as well as a winsome one; she handles oily Le Guiche (Carl Reggiardo) as a snake charmer handles a cobra. It’s too bad, though, that Reggiardo is as oily as all that; Cyrano deserves a more formidable foil.

David Anthony Smith is smaller and not quite as vacant as Christian is sometimes played, but he catches most of the comedy in the character nevertheless, and his demise is quite touching--almost as much as Cyrano’s.

Daniel Bryan Cartmell is a solid Le Bret, and Harry Woolf is a jolly old baker. Lyndall L. Otto’s costumes are respectful of the period.

At 12852 Main St., Garden Grove, Thursdays through Sundays at 8:30 p.m., ending Aug. 12. Tickets: $10-$23; (714) 636-7213.