Heavy snow and difficult travel expected again, heaviest snow in southern Minnesota

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

Bradley Greenwald's nose for musical theater

Maybe you've seen "Cyrano de Bergerac" before, or one of the many adaptations of the story about the swashbuckling poet and his enormous nose. But if you haven't seen 

 which is midway through its premiere run at Theater Latte Da, you're missing the proboscis with the most-est. 

Cyrano has a beautiful soul but a face he believes to be ugly. He is skilled at wordplay and swordplay and always ready to use them both, such as when he is taunted about the size of his schnoz. He's been in love with Roxane since childhood, but he dares not hope she can see past his nose. Instead, he agrees to help pretty-boy Christian pursue her.

This musical reinvention is remarkable. Bradley Greenwald, who wrote the book and the lyrics to Robert Elhai's music, performs the title role with sensitivity and skill, not to mention a voice that could knock birds out of their trees. He fuses music and story without visible effort.  

"We are on this earth," Greenwald's Cyrano says, "to articulate the ineffable." And boy, does he ever. 

Toward the end of the first act, when Roxane has stiff-armed the earnest but inarticulate Christian, Cyrano progresses from stage whispers to spoken dialogue to song — soaring, achingly expressive song. As Cyrano improvises the text that will win Roxane's heart for Christian, we see the personification of selfless love — coupled with the crippling effects of a lousy self-image. "My life is complete," he says at the foot of Roxane's balcony, though his life is, at best, half complete. 

It's heartbreaking. Go ahead and cry. Be thankful that, with your normal-sized nose, you won't need a handkerchief the size of a bedsheet. At the Ritz Theater in northeast Minneapolis, with a run that's just been extended through May 1. 

 
Just as Cyrano gives voice to Christian, 

 a giant rabbit that most people can't see: "I was walking down along the street and I heard this voice saying, 'Good evening, Mr. Dowd.' I turned around and here was this big six-foot rabbit leaning up against a lamp-post. Well, I thought nothing of that because when you've lived in a town as long as I've lived in this one, you get used to the fact that everybody knows your name." The Mary Chase play that gave Jimmy Stewart one of his most popular movie roles opens at the Guthrie Friday night. It's a sweet and wholesome play, if you don't think too hard about Elwood's untreated alcoholism. As he puts it: "In this world, you must be oh so smart, or oh so pleasant. Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant." That could describe the play, too: "Harvey" isn't the most challenging work of American theater, but it sure is pleasant. At the Guthrie in Minneapolis, through May 15. 

During the Spanish Civil War, soldiers murdered the poet and theater artist 

 and burned his books. This weekend, his works will live again in the premiere of Susana di Palma's new work, "Lorca's Women," performed by 

 in Minneapolis. The troupe's mission includes educating patrons in all the elements of flamenco — including spoken word. Di Palma is the founder and guiding creative spirit behind Zorongo Flamenco, and 

 expects the performance will be a vivid exercise of female power. Friday through Sunday at the Cowles Center. 

, an excellent way to consume every bit of your free time through the end of next week. If you start Thursday and limit yourself to just one film per day, here's a sample itinerary for the weekend: "Robert Bly: A Thousand Years of Joy," about the life of the man who is possibly the most influential poet ever to come out of Minnesota; "Voices of Light: The Passion of Joan of Arc," a pairing of the famous 1928 silent film about the French martyr with a live concert by the Oratorio Society of Minnesota;  "Minnesota 13: From Grain to Glass," about a celebrated homegrown moonshine from Prohibition days; and "Serial Killer 1," a French police procedural. And that only gets you through the weekend, with another full week to go. Take some time, 

, try not to get overwhelmed. Various locations, through April 23. 

 It's a chance to imagine you live in Cannes.

Not just a violinist, but an exciting violinist


Patricia Kopatchinskaja, an artistic partner of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, 

 that she has no idea why she deserves to be considered special — even, in the estimation of some critics, the most exciting violinist in the business. The Moldovan prefers to let her music speak for her, and she'll be doing that this weekend with the SPCO in a program called 

 Never mind that she told Weber, "I think that I don't play very well Bach. ...  I don't want to disturb too much Bach's music." It's a safe bet that Bach, and the other three composers on the program, won't be disturbed. Friday morning and evening; Saturday evening, Ordway Concert Hall. 

 You should hear Kopatchinskaja while you have the chance.

Arts and Culture

MPR News Staff

Author

Theater Latte Da presents a musical reinvention of a big-nosed classic, a murdered poet is remembered through flamenco, and the Minneapolis St. Paul Film Festival continues with more movies than you can possibly watch.

A new spin on 'Cyrano,' and four other arts events not to miss this weekend

Go Deeper.

Like this?