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Sections Home Page Local News AP News Archives Business Classifieds Event Calendar Forums Life Opinion Obituaries Photo Gallery Readers Photo Gallery Sports Tempo Weather Special Coverage 2006 Britt Festivals --> Shop Our Valley AutoFinder HomeFinder JobFinder Search Our Valley Special Sections Homelife Magazine Joy Magazine Readers Choice 2006 Oregon Golf Info Oregon Wine Info Our Valley Other Publications Local Links Ashland News eSouthernOregon Newspapers In Education Personals Moving Here Movie Listings TV Listings Volunteer Customer Service Advertise With Us Media Kit Place Classified Ad Contact Us FAQ's Home Delivery Site Map --> Email Story to a Friend June 19, 2006 Barricelli returns to OSF as a powerful 'Cyrano' Subhead In the "Cyrano De Bergerac" that opened Saturday on the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Elizabethan Stage, something momentous has happened. The first scene in Laird Williamson's direction of Edmond Rostand's 1897 epic of romantic malarkey in 17th century France has Cyrano striding into a cloying performance of "Clorise" to drive Montfleury, the ham actor, from the stage. What has happened is that the soldier/poet Cyrano, in a petty world, has resolved to embrace the sublime. He will no longer tolerate sham, hypocrisy, stupidity, meanness or dishonesty. In his world, as in ours, this is not a plan for a happy life. The evening marked actor Marco Barricelli's return to the OSF, who left after the 2000 season to join the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. His Cyrano is a triumph, the embodiment of panache (which Cyrano explains is not just the white plume in his hat, but his soul). Williamson fills the stage with so much grand passion, Gascon derring-do, smoke and fog of battle, moonlit magic and fairytale touches that it's unlikely anybody will get hung up on Barricelli's magnificent nose. It is both preposterous and realistic, and Barricelli wears it well. A big man with a big voice, he brings presence and audacity to the swashbuckling character with the soul of a philosopher. His story is the triumph of a beautiful soul — albeit one that's a bit mad — over a flawed exterior. Cyrano is convinced that despite his excellence — he is a swordsman, poet, wit, musician and leader — no woman can love him because of his grotesque appearance. Advertisement Thus unable to woo the beautiful Roxane (Robin Goodryn Nordli), a noted precieuse (refined woman who nurtures the arts and demands wit in her suitors), he agrees to provide the words for the wooing to the handsome but dim-witted Christian (Rex Young), who has also fallen for Roxane. Christian is hopeless ("Tonight I feel inspired — by my own inspiration!" he exults), but the lovely letters Cyrano writes to Roxane do the trick. The letters lead to Barricelli's most beguiling scene, which is the emotional heart of the play and the second most-famous balcony scene in world theater. Christian begins speaking lines fed to him by Cyrano as Roxane listens on her moonlit balcony. But the awkwardness — we can hear Cyrano whispering, for Pete's sake — and Cyrano's vaulting passion, lead Cyrano, as "Christian," to plead his case directly to his beloved. Shrouded by darkness, Barricelli's voice grows in power as he flings torrent after torrent of winged words that mount in ecstatic and unmistakably erotic crescendos. His inspired poetry has the desired effect, and Roxane melts. When Christian climbs the balcony to claim Roxane's kisses for the first time, Cyrano reflects bitterly that it is his words she is kissing, not Christian's lips. "Cyrano de Bergerac" is romantic melodrama, but Cyrano is a complex character worthy of tragedy. Barricelli's cardinal achievement may be making us believe in his absolute, uncompromising fidelity to his own morality, a radical truthfulness that renders him in this world but not of it. Cyrano's is a fish-out-of-water story. He has become, literally, too good for this world. There is but one sword fight in the production, and its end departs from the usual text. Cyrano duels the annoying Valvert (James Newcomb) while improvising a narrative poem about the fight, reserving the climax for the moment of the kill. But this time he settles for slicing his adversary's nose. There is also comedy in Cyrano's arc. When the reptilian Count de Guiche (Derrick Lee Weeden) shows up to haul Christian off to battle at the very moment Christian and Roxane are being married, Cyrano delays him by pretending to be a lunatic who believes he has just dropped to Earth from the moon. His hilarious tomfoolery thwarts de Guiche from stopping the marriage, but not from deploying Christian to a lost cause. The big battle scene at the siege of Arras is staged on a multi-leveled set with cannon-fire and smoke, the romantic and far-fetched arrival of Roxane's coach, the courage of starving, bedraggled men in desperate battle and Christian's death before Roxane can learn the truth. In the convent to which she has retired, 15 years later, she finally gets it when the mortally wounded Cyrano, who has visited her faithfully all these years, knows by heart his last letter, which she has kept next to her heart. The selflessness of Cyrano's love — as fierce and uncompromising as everything else in him — has brought him a sort of apotheosis. Is all this mush? Sure it is. And it's a long mush, at well over three hours, not every minute of which is transcendent. But it's a finely conceived, memorable production, anchored by a bravura performance. It is inspired mush with a bright flame of inner radiance. 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