I love this play beyond the telling. It's one of the few single plays I own. The plays I keep on my shelves are complete plays of Shakespeare, Marlowe and Oscar Wilde, some Moliere, a collection of Spanish classics such as de Barca's La Vida Es Un Sueno and this--one of the few French plays that Americans are likely to see in production or film. Even Steve Martin did a modernized adaptation of it in Roxanne. The thing is that I do agree with the LibraryThing reviewer that counts Cyrano as not someone to admire, rather than the other reviewer on LibraryThing who saw this as a beautiful "unselfish" love. Indeed, Cyrano causes misery all around him because he's unselfish--or too cowardly--to woo his love in his own right. That's the tragedy. But, at least in the translation by Anthony Burgess, so much delights. The back cover says that what this translation has that so many lack is "panache." And yes, this is so witty and sparkling and funny for so much of its length--and poignant and heartbreaking. I have to count as great a playwright who can make me laugh and then cry within the same play.
