Cyrano de Bergerac alone against 28 ? the theatre of the single actor.


At the beginning of this project there was a question: ?Why does the actor act in the theatre alone?? The answer was little bit trivial, but sincere: ?Because in the theatre where he is employed, he doesn't act enough, or not just that he wishes to act.? ?And what do you wish to act?? asked stage manager. ?Cyrano!? answer the actor. Who wouldn't like to act Cyrano? Maybe someone who just wants to act Hamlet. ?All right than, you will act Cyrano,? decided stage manager. ?Alea iacta est,? actor didn't forget to remind that he learned Latin. ?We have Cyrano, but what the others? You will have to act the others too!? ?So, why not?? The theatre is the mystery world. That is why it fascinates so much. You can act two or three personage in one evening. For example mime! In one person we can see cars, trees, streets, flea behind shirt, evil dog, trolley full of people, all city...



?Why didn't we think it up earlier?!? ?The whole play with the single actor!? ?This will be great theatre!? The two artists, confident, showed their idea to Mister Rostand. They expected to be cussed for wanting to damage the piece. But the old man just smiled and said, ?I don't care.? They both were petrified. ?Do you know why? That monologue about nose. Do you know how many responses you must portray on one page? About a dozen. That means, if there is 116 pages, you should have about 1400 characters,? stage manager started wonder. ?So twenty eight characters in an entire play, should be easy for you,? said Mister Rostand. He started to thinking. Cyrano started to change really slowly from a versifying killer into shy wooer, elegant tempter with strange name into rebel against tyranny and snobbery, quiet company with lots of gossips, the man with broken head. He was telling his verses aggressively, dreadfully, naively, timidly, tragically, descriptively, ironically...



The first appearance of the theatre of a single actor Cyrano de Bergerac alone against 28 was in 1987 and I perform it still. This is an attempt to perform theatre alone. Obviously I act it in clubs, galleries or somewhere outside. This performance came into being at the time when I worked in professional theatre ? the Westbohemian theatre in Cheb. This theatre holds an annual competitions for single actor performances. It is important for actors to represent this style of theatre, because I didn´t like mono-drama, so with director Karol Skladan we though up this experiment.