behind the scenes
on playing Cyrano for a historical figure.
“Real lives never fit neatly into the confines of dramatic structures and two-hour performances. It is nearly impossible to discover the day to day reality, the words uttered and emotions felt in the face of life’s vagaries, of those who have come before us. What we glean comes mostly from documents intended for public consumption. That which they chose to let the world see. Veronica’s letters are carefully crafted presentation. Her poetry, a complex poetic form fashionable in her day, designed not to be performed off the cuff, as in our play, but to be written down in pamphlets and passed around the salon, reveals only so much of the heart as she thought prudently consumable. At times, she exalted her sexual prowess, at others, the underrated strength of the fairer sex. She chastised faithless lovers and misogynist rivals. She wrote poems to unnamed lovers. And in one letter, she warns of the high cost of always belonging to another. What she said over the breakfast table or the balcony or the deathbed, the flesh and bones of life and drama, we will never know. And so, glimpsing a fellow soldier of the human condition, whose struggles and strength call to us across time and hint at some possible insight into our own selves, we make it up.”
From Program Notes, Pasadena Playhouse Premiere of Dangerous Beauty, by Jeannine Dominy.
In “From Hollywood Film to Musical Theater: Veronica Franco in American Popular Culture” in Authoring Early Modern European Women: From Biography to Biofiction, Margaret Rosenthal compares the film Dangerous Beauty with the original script, referred to here as the “Gondola” script after the narrative device of the boat from which Veronica recounts her story. The chapter describes Veronica’s original characterization “as a proto-feminist who defended women’s autonomy, social justice, and creative freedom.” As Rosenthal points out:
Veronica’s life story in the original screenplay is shaped not by men who speak on her behalf but by the distinctly female experiences (mothering, friendship, mentoring) that Franco describes in her familiar letters. Dominy’s secure grasp of both Venetian social history and Franco’s writings vividly recreates Franco’s voice. Historical documents (wills, tax reports, Inquisition trial hearings) also inform Veronica’s engagement with the men and women at the center of Dominy’s narrative, supplying multidimensional individuals … Veronica’s definition of “freedom” in the original screenplay means living independently of men and on her own terms. . . . [In] the final scene in the “Gondola” script … Veronica articulates a vision of collective female unity, a woman’s power to choose her purpose in life, and the importance of female friendship, often expressed in Franco’s poems and letters. This call to women does not exclude men but it reaches beyond them to generations of women who still find comfort and inspiration in her pioneering wisdom.
Critical Acclaim
“I am not surprised, as I said, that the screenwriter is a woman … a man also looks for autonomy, power, independence and authority, and a woman in 16th century Venice (and even today) is expected to surrender those attributes to her husband. … Most movies are made by males and show women enthralled by men. This movie knows better.”
— Roger Ebert, Feb. 27, 1998
“In addition to the character I want to go back to the history being taught here, and here’s something that brings in a lot of fascinating material in a very quick way … it’s very well written … it’s sexy, it’s pretty, it’s romantic, it’s funny, it’s got everything.”
— Siskel and Ebert, WTTW PBS Chicago, 1998
“… thanks to the formidable twined talents of writer Jeannine Dominy, composer Michele Brourman and lyricist Amanda McBroom … in its meticulous structure, the variety of its characters … the deep wit and intelligence … the show is exceptional.”