A nose is a nose is a nose in 'Cyrano'

6 | L!FE | JANUARY 29, 2010 | HAMILTON JOURNALNEWS

FAIRFIELD — Cyrano de Bergerac is no Twinkie — but his nose is.

The romantic poet with the famously pronounced proboscis comes to Farifield’s Community Arts Center Saturday, Jan. 30, and then Middletown on Feb. 5 via a play produced by Cincinnati’s Playhouse in the Park. The play features some unusual props, such as the Twinkie for Cyrano’s nose.

The concept of the show, called “Cyrano,” is that the three actors use whatever props they happen to find at the venue in which they are appearing, said Terah Herman, an educational associate for Playhouse in the Park. So there could be a swordfight not with swords, but umbrellas, she said.

The story of Cyrano centers around a triangle of the title character, plus a handsome but inarticulate man named Christian, and a woman named Roxane. Cyrano agrees to ghost-write poetry for Christian to help woo Roxane, but is also in love with Roxane himself.

Therefore, the play deals with themes of inner beauty versus external superficial beauty, and the found props are meant to reflect those themes.

“This is a concept we’ve been working on for a number of years,” said Mark Lutwak, the director of the show. “This particular script is very, very stripped down, and it’s very clear that it’s whipping up this beautiful tale out of nothing. It seemed to me that I wanted to go for the most extreme vision, so what if we started with absolute garbage, and out of those objects, we really make a beautiful tragedy?”

That’s why the cast and crew make use of found props wherever they go. They do have a core group of props so they have everything they need, but even so, most of the props are “the sort of stuff you find in a janitor’s closet or a lost and found,” Lutwak said.

In addition, the show has fun with sound too. Because umbrellas don’t make much of a clanging noise, it’s up to musician Grant Cambridge to add the right aural effects.

“He uses all kinds of stuff — a snare drum, woodblocks and various kinds of whistles,” Herman said.

The end result, hopefully, will have the audience running the gamut of emotions.

“We’ll make them laugh in the first act and make them cry in the second,” Lutwak said.

“Cyrano” is one of several plays in the Playhouse in the Park “Off the Hill” program, an initiative to bring Playhouse productions to area schools and community centers. Future local productions include “Paul Mesner Puppets: Stinky Cheese Man,” March 12 at the Fairfield CAC; and “The Garden of Rikki Tikki Tavi,” April 2 at the Oxford Community Arts Center and April 9 at the Fitton Center for Creative Arts.

Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2836 or erobinette @coxohio.com.