A Few Thoughts on Cyrano and Hamilton

*Spoilers.*

I’ve been thinking a lot about Cyrano since I watched it, and in considering the various angles of the story, I found myself drawing parallels with Hamilton numerous times. This was unexpected, but I leaned into it and started teasing out more of these thoughts. They may wind up being mostly unconnected ramblings, but I wanted to write some of them down and see what comes out.

Despite being very different characters in execution, there are plenty of similarities between Cyrano and Hamilton. Obviously, both place great value on their way with words. Cyrano is a wit and poet who always puts his best word forward, and Hamilton “[writes] like [he’s] running out of time,” turning to the strength of his words whenever he’s in trouble. They’re both accomplished men who project a lot of confidence but also have deep insecurities that they endeavor to mask. Cyrano throws clever insults at himself before others have the chance to, and Hamilton’s forceful energy is a way of plowing past his doubts. Both have a great deal of pride, which can get them into trouble. Cyrano’s love for Roxanne is all-consuming, but he’s so convinced he’ll be rejected that he never makes a move, and Hamilton’s drive to prove himself to those who look down on him burns a lot of bridges, including in his family.

But for all of Cyrano’s Hamilton-like qualities, when it comes to Roxanne, his reluctance to act is more reminiscent of Burr. It’s not the same—Burr’s “wait for it” approach is a calculated stance to gain the most advantage by not committing to anything that’s not a sure thing—but it’s striking that Cyrano, who’s so bold in everything, holds back at the one thing that matters most to him. Le Bret tells him, “You forget, I’ve seen you in battle. You’re a fighter to the end. But in love, you’ve raised the white flag.”

Then, there’s Roxanne, who reminds me of both Angelica and Eliza in different ways. Her nimble mind and hunger for poetry bears a resemblance to Angelica’s intellectual sharpness, as is the clever way she navigates the uncertainties of life as a single woman. She knows how to respond to the Duke to keep him on the hook, playing the game to get what she wants without being trapped. But while Angelica is pragmatic enough to realize all the reasons why she can’t just marry for love, giving up the man she wants to secure stability for her family and happiness for her sister, Roxanne is also a romantic who refuses to marry someone she doesn’t love. Instead, she falls head over heels for a poor soldier and risks her situation with the Duke to write to him and arrange secret meetings; outwardly, she’s bolder than Eliza, but this leading with her heart is definitely a more Eliza-like attribute.

This final point might feel like a stretch, but it was the one that led into all my other Hamilton comparisons, so here we go. The subtle, dreamlike quality of Cyrano’s musical elements is really effective to me, the way the characters softly slide in and out of song, the way the ensemble can suddenly slip into dance without ever acknowledging that they’re part of a musical number. Because the music is fueled largely by Cyrano and Roxanne’s words, by their poetic thoughts, it struck me that their words are bringing the musical around them into being. And that made me think of Eliza talking about Hamilton’s letters to her in “Burn”: “You and your words flooded my senses. / Your sentences left me defenseless. / You built me palaces out of paragraphs, / You built cathedrals.” More directly, this could simply be a parallel for how Roxanne is affected by the letters Cyrano writes her on Christian’s behalf, but I also really like the idea that both of them are creating the musical with their poetry.