Cyrano: "Tale as old as time"

Upon reading Cyrano De Bergerac I was very confused at first; I found the amount of French terms used in the play to be hard to understand. After taking the time to read it though, I really began to enjoy it. The concept behind this play has been used many times in modern film and theatre. For example, Cyrano parallels the Beast, in The Beauty and the Beast, in the way that they’re both first presented as mean, angry characters. As both stories progress, it becomes clear that they are both very loving people—and of course the obvious—neither are “physically attractive”. The story is timeless: An unattractive man loves a beautiful woman but is too scared to tell her. While, yes, it is a somewhat generic idea, Edmond Rostand did a great job of making it unique. One way that he accomplished this was by giving “the man in love” a huge nose; this gave valid reasoning why he could not admit his love to Roxane and, well, its also pretty funny. Secondly, he took the idea and turned it into a love triangle—those are of course always very interesting. Lastly, the tangling of Cyrano and Christian’s web of lies adds to the comedic side of the story, while the fact that Cyrano does not get to be with his love, provides the tragedy. Creating the tale as a tragic comedy is something quite different than the others. Just the idea of a tragic comedy in general is not something that is common or easy to pull-off. I admire the author’s way of dealing with the clichés associated with similar stories.