So Wyner came out to this musical incubator in the Berkshires, founded last year by BSC and led by William Finn. Finn said before Tuesday night's opening that Wyner has made substantial revisions since Gloucester, particularly in the second act, which had been criticized for some implausible character shifts and a jarring ending.
Whatever he did, it's working. The show now builds smoothly to a sweet but satisfying finale, one that lets the two couples onstage pair off believably as we knew all along they should. With only four characters, there are only so many ways to twist the relationships, but what this resolution lacks in suspense it makes up for in charm.
Charm, in fact, is the chief quality of this featherweight but engaging chamber piece. As Finn noted, Wyner has taken a swashbuckling melodrama and reinvented it as farce; the noble swordsman with the giant nose, who writes poetry to help a handsome dimwit woo the woman they both love, is now a geeky, gawky high school kid, and Edmond Rostand's purplish drama is likewise transposed to a lighter and younger key.
The switch makes emotional sense, unlike some other transplantings of the hardy perennial. (The 1987 film "Roxanne," which had Steve Martin's awkwardly earnest firefighter wooing a stilted Daryl Hannah, comes to mind.) Where better to set a story about obsession with personal imperfections and helpless infatuations than in high school? If ever there were a time when everyone felt like Cyrano, it's in those tormentingly self-conscious adolescent years.
