A nose too long

In the first scene of “Cyrano de Bergerac,� the title character rudely interrupts a theatrical performance and hijacks the stage with his own commanding personality. The 17th century traditionalists who are watching this play-within-the-play tsk-tsk, but most of Cyrano’s spectators relish his actions.

Director Mark Rucker has behaved much like Cyrano in his stagings of Shakespearean comedies at South Coast Repertory, tweaking “The Taming of the Shrew,� “Much Ado About Nothing� and “Two Gentlemen of Verona� with imaginative infusions of 20th century American references. Featuring eye-opening design and show-stopping gags, his productions might have offended purists but nevertheless pleased the crowds.

So what new and exciting ideas would Rucker bring to “Cyrano� itself?

None, as it turns out. Rucker’s latest, again at South Coast, is a “Cyrano� for the traditionalists, a haven from modern American pop culture. It’s as if Rucker had been injected with a vaccine designed to fight outbreaks of aesthetic novelty.

This might be just what “Cyrano� novices want. It’s helpful to see a conventional production of a classic before you can appreciate any looser variations. Still, Rucker’s sudden appreciation for fidelity to the original goes too far -- literally. The production has two intermissions and is well over three hours.

In an interview in South Coast Repertory’s newsletter, Rucker said of Edmond Rostand’s “heroic comedy� that “people have tried to whittle it down and force it into an unnaturally small size, but I’m not sure it works that way.� However, he also noted that he had never seen “Cyrano� staged.

I’ve seen at least five productions, and none was this long. Although the leading character embodies excess, the play doesn’t have to follow suit. The “verbal mist,� to borrow a phrase from the Anthony Burgess translation and adaptation that Rucker uses, occasionally becomes so thick that the forward motion grinds to a halt while we wait for all the words to pass by.

Rucker correctly pointed out in the interview that the play’s scope generally becomes smaller, with fewer people on stage as the action continues. This pattern increases the risk of anticlimax and makes it all the harder to sustain his kid-gloves approach to the text. The play might feel speedier if it began with attention focused on a few characters and then grew into more-populated scenes. But because the play’s breadth diminishes as its length increases, judicious trimming is the best way to forestall a sense of inertia.

The gifted Mark Harelik plays the title role with appropriate panache in the heroic scenes and persuasive moments of self-doubt in the introspective scenes. Still, in a production this long, it would be interesting to see a Cyrano whose self-doubt extends beyond the length of his enormous nose. This staging doesn’t suggest that his insecurity goes any deeper.

Also, Cyrano’s gambit in which he poses as a man from the moon, while delaying the slimy Comte de Guiche (Gregory Itzin) from interrupting an offstage wedding, isn’t funny enough to feel like anything more than a stalling device. This is when the inertia kicks in.

Susannah Schulman is a luminous presence as Roxane, the blond goddess who has fallen for the young soldier Christian because of his words, without realizing that they were actually written by her longtime friend Cyrano. The best result of Rucker’s disinclination to trim the text is that Roxane’s distribution of food to the starving cadets, which is cut from some productions, remains intact. It demonstrates that Roxane is a much more resourceful woman.

There are 31 actors here, generally making their marks without undue confusion. Martha McFarland does an especially notable turn in a man’s role, as the hapless performer Montfleury in the opening scene.

Riccardo Hernandez’s sets, Shigeru Yaji’s costumes, Steven Cahill’s music and sound, and Chris Parry’s lighting -- which occasionally achieves Old Masters elegance -- are all handsome and tasteful. But this production about the cheeky Cyrano needs more cheek -- and a big red pencil.

*

‘Cyrano de Bergerac’

Where: South Coast Repertory, Segerstrom Stage, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

When: Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 2:30 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m.

Ends: June 27

Price: $27-$55

Contact: (714) 708-5555

Running Time: 3 hours, 20 minutes

Mark Harelik...Cyrano de Bergerac

Susannah Schulman...Roxane

Ryan Bittle...Christian de Neuvillette

Michael McShane...Ragueneau

Gregory Itzin...Comte de Guiche

Jeffrey Hutchinson...Le Bret

Preston Maybank...Valvert

Richard Doyle...Lingniere/Carbon de Castel-Jaloux

Hal Landon Jr....Bellerose

Nike Doukas...Duenna/Marthe

Martha McFarland...Montfleury/Mother Marquerite

By Edmond Rostand. Translated and adapted by Anthony Burgess. Sets by Riccardo Hernandez. Costumes by Shigeru Yaji. Lighting by Chris Parry. Music and sound by Steven Cahill. Fight choreographers Daniel R. Forcey and Aaron Angello. Stage manager Scott Harrison.