For five years, actor Patrick Page skulked around the stage in a 45-pound robotic costume as a villainous cat in "Disney's The Lion King." For five years more, he had to hold his arms aloft for hours on end as the singing candelabra in "Disney's Beauty and the Beast." And for two winters, he was a walking green carpet as Broadway's "Grinch."
But when it comes to Herculean challenges, Page says Scar, Lumiere and the Grinch are a walk in the park compared with the role he's playing now -- the title character in Edmond Rostand's "Cyrano de Bergerac" at the Old Globe Summer Shakespeare Festival.
The role of Cyrano not only requires lavish costuming, huge plumed hats, wigs and the famed false nose, it's also the longest and one of the most demanding roles in the theatrical canon. And that's just half of it. Besides leading the cast of "Cyrano," which opened Saturday in previews, Page is also playing the deluded Malvolio in the Globe's "Twelfth Night," which opened Wednesday. The two roles will keep Page busy four to five nights a week for the next four months.
Regional repertory is the sort of resume-building, meat-and-potatoes work where many young stage actors start their careers. It's virtually never the place you'll find a seasoned Broadway star. So what is Page -- whose Broadway credits include playing Henry VIII in last winter's "A Man for All Seasons" -- doing 3,000 miles from his Manhattan home treading the boards in rep?
"Having the time of my life," said Page, 46, whom Globe audiences remember as the star of last season's "The Pleasure of His Company" and as the vain Shakespearean actor Jeffrey in "Dancing in the Dark" (a role that earned him a San Diego Theatre Critics Circle Award). The classically trained actor said he decided to return to repertory to reaffirm his theatrical roots and to immerse himself in a character the way a regular theatrical run never allows.
"When it was first offered to me, I really had to think about it. What it did was, it made me evaluate why I'm in the business. That gets to the heart of it," said Page, whose first experience with theater was watching his father perform in the '60s at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Page made his stage debut at age 8, and later spent the first eight years of his adult career in repertory at the Utah Shakespeare Festival.
"I'm frequently disappointed with the quality of classical work in New York, and I haven't been afraid to say so. This gave me the chance to put my lack of money where my mouth was and to put myself in the position to do what I've been trained to do and have been given the gifts to do, but haven't done in a long time."
And there's also the fact that Page saw the opportunity to work again with director Darko Tresnjak -- director of "Cyrano," the Shakespeare festival, last season's "Pleasure" and the Globe's resident artistic chief -- as an opportunity he couldn't pass up.
"I have this litmus test with roles -- could I bear to read about another actor playing Cyrano with Darko at the Old Globe? When I knew I couldn't, the decision was made," he said.
"Cyrano de Bergerac" is the first non-Shakespeare play presented as part of the Globe Shakespeare festival since the fest was revived in 2004. Tresnjak says he chose "Cyrano" because it's a beloved classic that has many of the qualities of Shakespeare's plays -- emotional complexity, epic scope, poetry and witty wordplay.
"It's beautiful and sophisticated and it dances. It's a gourmet meal of a play," Tresnjak said. "And the scope of it is enormous. It's bigger than anything we've ever done in the rep."
Set in 1640 Paris, "Cyrano de Bergerac" is the bittersweet tale of a brilliant French poet, swordsman and Army captain who falls in love with the beautiful Roxane but lacks the confidence to woo her because of his enormous nose. When his handsome but slow-witted fellow soldier Christian asks for Cyrano's help in writing love letters to Roxane, Cyrano agrees, knowing it will give him an avenue to express his true feelings for Roxane, even though it's for another man's benefit. The tragic three-way love story spans three decades and ends sadly, but the play is beloved for its characters, its rhyming verse and its comic wit.
"It's fascinating to me at how effortlessly it moves the audience," Tresnjak said of the play. "As the characters age, we age with them, and it takes the audience on a journey from mode to mode and from mood to mood."
The Globe will be producing Anthony Burgess' translation of the 1897 play, which both Page and Tresnjak said is brilliant in its construction and cleverness. Page played Cyrano once before in 2003 in a production using Brian Hooker's more traditional 1923 translation, but he feels Burgess's 1970 translation better suits the mind of Rostand, a bright young wordsmith who is said to have written the play in just five weeks at the age of 29.
"I'm a 100 percent advocate of the Burgess. It's the irreplaceable translation," Page said. "It's like a Shakespeare text in that you're always finding new things in it. Burgess was in love with puns, puzzles and word games, and the script is filled with hidden treasures."
Tresnjak said that among the things he likes most about working with Page are his attention to detail, his preparation and the ideas he brings to the table, which have had a big part in shaping the Globe production.
"In so many plays, the result is the director's vision, but in this case, I'm not afraid to say that the actor's vision is a big part of what audiences will see."
Page returns the compliment, saying: "Good actors who have lots of ideas need great directors to free up those ideas and not get shut down. Darko and I have a wonderful shorthand. If I have an idea and it's a good one, he'll say let's work with it, and if it's a bad idea, he'll protect me from it."
More than anything, Page said Tresnjak brings his own "exquisite taste" to the production, an "oddly rare quality" that allows the actors free rein in rehearsal with the knowledge that Tresnjak will pull them back in when necessary. Speaking of taste, Tresnjak said the look and sound of the production will be inspired by the 17th-century paintings of Velazquez and the French baroque operas of Jean-Philippe Rameau and Jean-Baptiste Lully.
To prepare for the role of Cyrano, Page said he spent six weeks at the gym to build up his lungs for the lengthy speeches and stage time (Cyrano hardly ever leaves the stage during the play's three hours). He said he's drinking gallons of water each day, eating heavily to avoid losing weight and trying to sleep as many as 10 hours each night.
"It's the longest role ever written for an actor," said Page, his hand resting on a well-worn script heavily notated in pencil with his own observations and research. "Iago and Richard III are a cakewalk compared to Cyrano."
With the long rehearsal period over and performances now under way, Page said he's looking forward to enjoying San Diego's sights and weather, and to several visits from his wife, former "Trading Spaces" host Paige Davis. Page says working in a repertory company again has the comfortable feeling of a well-worn shoe.
"I am so happy," he said. "The only thing that surprises me is that it took me any time to make the decision to come here. I'm doing what I'm meant to do."
"Cyrano de Bergerac"
When: 8 p.m. June 25, 26, 27; July 7, 10, 12, 18, 21, 24, 28, 29 and 31; Aug. 6, 8, 13, 15, 21, 23, 26, 27 and 30; Sept. 2, 3, 4, 12, 16, 19, 20, 22 and 27
Where: Lowell Davies Festival Theatre, Old Globe complex, Balboa Park, San Diego
Tickets: $29-$76
Info: 619-234-5623
Web: oldglobe.org
