Believe it or not, there are now two Francophile theatre companies in town: Sing'theatre and the newly inaugurated French Stage, the latter of which is signaling its entry into the drama scene with a lavish production of this classic play.
Director Sophie Bendel strives for spectacle. Her interpretation of the piece involves 30 actors dressed in 40 period costumes. (How they managed to budget for that many floppy hats and musketeer boots, I do not know.) There are musicians, swordsmen, dancers and urchins, all of whom are kept busy with stage action during the grandest scenes. There are even video projections on the wall to establish setting – though these look rather tawdry, and have an unfortunate tendency to flicker.
Yet in spite of these flourishes, I don't feel that the performance quite hits the mark. Certainly, Quentin Bernard is eloquent as the swashbuckling Cyrano and Marine Noel exudes grace as his love interest Roxane, but there's very little chemistry, no spark, no sense of the spontaneous fun that a commedia dell'arte-inspired piece should possess. Only Vincent Perrier-Truvov as the clownish cook Ragueneau seems to have the requisite joyous charisma you need to keep a three-hour intermissionless period piece going.
That being said, this is a completely competent work of amateur theatre, and should be justly celebrated by the local Francophone community. A word of warning to non-French speakers, though: there are no line-by-line surtitles provided, just scene summaries in English and Mandarin.