Cyranose

So last Friday, I went to see Cyrano de Bergerac at the outdoor Shakespeare fest. Yes, I know. Not Shakespeare. Go with it.

And somewhere in the middle of the death scene, I realized how much differently I viewed this story as an adult compared to as a teenager. I remember loving the movie when I was a weepy teenager. Cyrano is quite the swashbuckler. I loved me a swashbuckler as a teen. (Still do.) And the Dallas Shakes Cyrano is a devilishly handsome son-of-a-gun with a way with a sword and a word. I was content. In spite of the fact that that the play is done outdoors. In the summer. On the surface of the sun.

The big thing that’s changed is that I loved the tragedy of the whole thing back then. The ever-so worthy Cyrano, brilliant, honorable, tres gentil, denied happiness with his beloved because of his horrible disfigurement (and can I just sidebar that quite obviously the French don’t share our proportional assumption based on a man and his nose? Otherwise C de B would be quite the popular boy). Yet he stays devoted to her, quietly in the background, selflessly assuring her happiness. I would have been reduced to a blubbering effluent mess when I was around 16. And then, as he dies at the hands of his enemies, the truth is finally revealed – boo hoo hoo hoo hoo! So romantic. The end.

What really? You deny yourself happiness because God didn’t give you the perfect little button nose of your dreams? That’s it? Dumbass. If she can’t see beyond the tip of your nose (ha!), then she’s not your girl. And she ain’t all that in the first place. Get off your damn knee, and go find yourself some happy. And Roxanne? I’d have been pretty effin’ pissed if I found out that he’d been basically lying to me all that time. And let me stay in a goddamn nunnery 10 freaking years! When he could have been writing me kickass sonnets and making like French bunnies? IDIOT! I don’t care if you’re dying. Slappity-slap-slap! Over a nose? Please.

In fact, my teenage self could probably have used a slappity-slap-slap too. Seriously. There are some things that are better left to the pubescent.