Love, life and theatre intertwine as Thoc’s latest production takes to the stage from Friday.
The life of the romantic hero with the most famous nose in world theatre comes alive for the first time on the Cypriot stage.
The Cyprus Theatre Organization (Thoc) will put on the masterpiece Cyrano de Bergerac by top romance novelist and French writer Edmund Rostand. The play is a heroic comedy that focuses on the grand beauty of life, praising love, generosity, dignity, bravery, spirit and, above all, absolute love.
Numerous well-known actors, composers and directors have worked together to produce the play and promise an eclectic production with a careful translation that resembles poetry, with music by the respected composer Andreas Georgiou.
As the entire play is written in verse, in rhyming couplets of twelve syllables per line, translator Louiza Mitsakou had a crucial job of maintaining the rhythm of the words whilst keeping the rhyme.
Popular Achilleas Grammatikopoulos directs the play, and has an excellent a group of 19 actors alongside him, with well-known Cypriot actor Loris Loizidis in the protagonist role. The production team aims to give an exuberant performance full of action, humour and emotion.
Although a real-life Cyrano de Bergerac existed, French novelist Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac, Rostand took only some of his inspiration for the play from him, while the rest is invention and myth.
Revolving around a theme that is a favourite for many playwrights, love is the main factor of the storyline. Cyrano, a talented swordsman and a skilled poet, is secretly in love with his distant cousin Roxane. However, his big nose has always been an obstacle for him and he battles with himself to confess his love to her. With no confidence and lots of humbleness, he will choose to support his rival, young Christian. With his expressiveness and ease with language, he supplies Christian with lyrics and erotic poems to win Roxane over.
Having been translated and performed many times, Cyrano de Bergerac is responsible for introducing the word ‘panache’ into the English language, as the protagonist is famed for his flamboyant mannerisms.
As the play’s mastermind, Rostand is seen as the last great ‘spokesman’ for romance. He was born in Marseilles in 1868 to a wealthy and cultured family and went on to study literature, history, philosophy and law.
His first great theatrical success came with his work The Romantics (Les Romanesques) in 1894, presented at the Comédie Française. The public, tired of naturalism and symbolism, found in Rostand’s poetic expression a classic French style and traditional values, charming excuses and ideals of romanticism. Three years later, in 1897, his masterpiece Cyrano de Bergerac became a popular triumph and Rostand was worshiped as a hero.
From November 23 onwards, the play will be on in Nicosia every Friday, Saturday and Sunday until February 11 when it will travel to Limassol, Larnaca and Paphos for a few shows only. The performances on January 11 in Nicosia and February 1 in Limassol will be with English and Turkish surtitles.
Cyrano de Bergerac
Theatre performance of Edmond Rostan’s play. Directed by famous actor Achilleas Grammatikopoulos. November 23 – February 9. In theatres in Nicosia, Limassol, Larnaca and Paphos. 8.30pm. 6pm on Sundays. €12 / €6. Tel: 77772717
