Bucking the hard realism of France at the turn of the century, Rostand came on the theatrical scene as an entertainer. His flamboyant wit, despite its aborted, cloying idealism, makes for brilliant entertainment in, the deft hands of Jose Ferrer in this week's opening of Cyrano de Bergerac.

Against the background of the vivid, swirling gaiety of Moliere's and d'Artagnan's France, Cyrano is the manipulated story of a rapier-wielding, poetry-spouting wit who lets his nose get in the way of his love affairs. An iconoclast, embattled against a pedantic society, he sweeps all before him except the final prize, the ivory-fair Roxane. His winning love speeches he puts into the mouth of a handsome dolt, for her sake. The motif is noble, yet it shrinks to the simple moral that it takes more than a sharp tongue, a sharper sword, and a magnificent soul to convince the right woman. This is not sound, inspired drama, nor is Rostand to be rated as a major dramatic poet. But the theatre thrives on striking situations and instantaneous effects, and of these Rostand is the master.

Enter Ferrer, a rare genius in the American theatre. This is the man who made Margaret Webster's Othello with his real and living Iago. He has at least equalled that triumph with Cyrano. This character, plagued by an obscene nose, must be "all things." After the first act, Ferrer makes the spectator forget that nose. Declaiming with high spirit, he leaves the audience gasping at the arched flight of his slick patter. He is meant to be a swashbuckler, and Ferrer gives it everything as he swaggers and gesticulates in the mixed role of philosopher, poet, soldier, and self-sacrificing lover, He is at his best as the hyper-sensitive ugly man. Ferrer's nuances of expression in his reaction to the slurs on his nose are especially precise. He moves with verve and fills in the speeches with grimaces and sounds of high comic value.

When he made Cyrano's ugliness so prominent, Rostand took a chance on slipping over into the ridiculous. Ferrer's production strikes the delicate balance between pomposity and farce. At rare moments in the comic scenes there is an overstraining after effect, but this can be blamed on the script. It is when Rostand tries to be another Shakespeare or Racine that the play loses its dash. The death of Christian, the puppet lover, and the end of Cyrano himself in a nunnery are on the edge of ennui. Written at a time when audiences liked their melodrama lush and their tears wet, these heroics leave the modern theatre-goer cold.

Th rest of the cast successfully immerses itself in the galvanic carnival spirit, with enough bravura to match the elegance and color of the costuming and the traditional splendor of the deep-cut sets. Ruth Ford, a fetching Roxane, knows the coquette routine thoroughly, though at times she plays it over-precious. The supporting characters are without depth, as the playwright drew them, and beyond Hiram Sherman's foppish Ragineau, there was little opportunity for scene stealing.