Hotter Than Roxanne’s Red Light
Roxanne, one of the films Steve Martin made when he was still funny is amusing, but nowhere near as profound and tragic as the depiction of Cyrano in Gerard Depardieu’s depiction of the nasally challenged romantic hero.
The classic story by Edmond Rostand has always been one of my favourites, probably because everyone can relate to Cyrano in one way or another. What’s surprising and enlightening is that Rostand wrote a play ten years before Cyrano which was a bit weird, a bit raunchy and for the time very naughty indeed.
“The convoluted first act takes place in the Musée Grevin, Paris’ Madame Tussauds, in which characters pretend to be waxworks then jump out to seduce female onlookers. They are looking for love letters hidden in a shop sign in the shape of a red glove.
Critics slammed the play – co-written by his fiancee’s half-brother – as unseemly. In one scene an actress appears in “a short skirt and corset” and in another men are in underclothes.”