Peter Dinklage’s performance in “Cyrano,” with acrobatic swordfights, lyrical song and dance scenes and grand romantic moments on a Connecticut stage became the stuff of legend, since relatively few people got to see it. The much-lauded new movie originated as a stage show that had its first workshop production at Goodspeed Musicals’ Norma Terris Theatre in Chester in 2018.
Many musicals become Broadway hits, tour the country and are embraced by regional theaters before Hollywood comes calling. By contrast “Cyrano” has had just two stage productions: its world premiere, as a work in progress, at the Goodspeed’s Norma Terris Theatre in August 2018, followed over a year later by a full production off Broadway at the Daryl Roth Theatre in November 2019.
The Goodspeed commissioned the show, which its creator Erica Schmidt had conceived some years earlier. It was her fresh take on the classic story of an intrepid adventurer and poet whose insecurity about his own attractiveness leads him to ghostwrite love letters to the woman of his dreams, Roxane, for a handsome young colleague of his named Christian, rather than wooing her himself. The story was made famous in a 1897 play by Edmond Rostand with the title “Cyrano de Bergerac,” which was very loosely based on a real-life 17th century writer and soldier with that name.
In her version, Schmidt wanted to concentrate on the inner turmoil of Cyrano that leads to his heart-wrenching romantic misrepresentation. One of the Goodspeed cast members, Damon J. Gillespie (who played Cyrano’s pal LeBret in the show, and does not appear in the movie), told the Courant in 2018 that “We all have our own insecurities and demons that keep us from falling in love or whatever. It’s more about Cyrano’s pride than anything.”
To set the downbeat, more internalized tone of the piece, Schmidt asked members of the moody pop band The National to write the score. They provided some previously written songs in the spirit of Schmidt’s script, later revising them or writing whole new songs. At the Goodspeed, the songs were performed live by the cast and a six-piece band with longtime The National collaborator Olivier Manchon as the music director. The songs have a very different sound in the film.
The stage show also had a different feel than the movie does. The Goodspeed costumes, for instance, were historical but not specific to any classical era, while the movie is more clearly rooted in the 1600s.
Costume Design is the only category in which “Cyrano” was nominated for an Academy Award. Before the nominations were announced, some critics had suggested Dinklage was a likely pick for Best Actor, but it didn’t happen.
The Goodspeed production was directed by Schmidt. She is married to Dinklage, the star of both the stage and screen versions, though she had not initially developed the piece with him in mind. The film is directed by Joe Wright, who came to the Norma Terris to see his romantic partner, Haley Bennett, in the role of Roxane and realized the cinematic possibilities of the project. Wright also adapted “Pride & Prejudice,” “Anna Karenina” and ‘Pan.”
Of the Goodspeed cast, only Dinklage and Bennett are also in the film. Both are best known for TV or film rather than stage pursuits. Dinklage is perhaps best known for “Game of Thrones” and “The Station Agent,” while Bennett has appeared in such films as “Girl on the Train,” “The Magnificent Seven,” “Hillbilly Elegy” and “Swallow.”
Cyrano was scheduled to run for a month at the Goodspeed, from Aug. 3 to Sept. 2 of 2018, but when tickets sold out in a matter of days, setting a sales record at the Goodspeed, the run was extended a week. But those extra performances all had to be canceled when the actor playing Christian, Blake Jenner, left the production early due to another opportunity. The Norma Terris only has around 200 seats, so less than 7,000 people were able to see the show.
Christopher Arnott can be reached at carnott@courant.com.
