Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-25396609-20150530163143/@comment-26463535-20150604060527

Cyrano is a cadet in the French army who is witty, imaginative, noble, enjoys the grand gesture, a poet, a playwright, brave, daring, independent, full of panache, in short he's the ideal man except for one thing: he has a towering nose that makes him self-councious of his appearence. He's in love with his cousin Roxane (this is during the time when cousin marriages were allowed) but she has fallen in love from a far with the brave, handsome but dull fellow cadet Christian. But Roxane does not know of his dullness so Cyrano writes Christian's love letters and gives Christian the words to speak so she never finds out. His efforts turn so sucessful that Christian and Roxane are soon married but then immeadiately he and Christian are sent into battle against the Spanish as Count de Guiche's revenage against the marriage taking place and that he wasn't able to stop it and have his own way with Roxane because of Cyrano's interference with a story about having gone to the moon and back.

Their army then comes under siege while trying to lay siege and their squad is desperate with hunger. The Count de Guiche visits and tells about his cunning when he dropped his officer's scarf in order to avoid capture. Cyrano calls him a coward for doing so and produces the scarf after saying he would have kept it as a badge of honor. The Count then signals a spy he has in the Spanish camp to focus Spain's next attack there. Just then Roxane arrives with food she smuggled past in her carriage. Cyrano then informs Christian about a promise he had been fulfilling to Roxane where he made sure "Christian" wrote her a letter every day. Roxane then is told about the upcoming attack but choses to stay with them and thereby encourages de Guiche to stay too. She then talks alone with Christian and tells him that the letters made her fall more in love with his soul, his mind then with his beauty and that she would love him even if he was ugly. Christian then goes and tells Cyrano, finally realizes that Cyrano loves Roxane too, offers that the marriage could be annuled, then goes off and fights on the front lines. Cyrano goes to Roxane then to confirm what Christian said and is about to tell her when instead he chooses to let the now dying Christian keep her heart.

15 years later, she has been mourning in a convent since after that battle with her only cheer coming from Cyrano giving her the news on his visits. Cyrano himself however has been unpopular and unsucessful as a writer because he attacks everyone and there's even talk about how it would be good if an "accident" should befall him. Cyrano soons arrives at the convent, late for the first time and starts giving Roxane his version of the news. He then reminds Roxane of a promise she made to let him read "Christian's" farewell letter, written before that battle. He then proceeds to read it aloud and from how he reads it and how he can read it in the dark, Roxane realizes that all this time he has been her love. Cyrano tries to deny it but Roxane is presitent and asks why is he letting it slip now. Then she finds out that he was late because he had been ambushed by a heavy block of wood being dropped on his head and he had very little time left. He then proceeds to stand as death comes, going done as a fighting man and proud to be offering to the throne of heaven his white plume of freedom, his panache.

This is a really rough summary but it at least gets across the main plot. But I highly recommend actually reading the play, especially his nose monologue, his impromptu rhyming while dueling, his monologue about why he has no patron, the balcony scene with him, Christian, and Roxane, and his dying monologue.