Cyrano?

A bunch of people have asked why I posted the page from the Cyrano script. In short…

I saw the play 20 years ago in London and loved the passion Burgess put in those words. Cyrano is old and crippled and slumped in a chair on dark stage lit by a single candle, with a giant winter-bared tree silhouetted above him. A few leaves drift off the tree as the scene opens. Cyrano imagines a skull stalking him and, first whispering and then shouting, rises to fight one last time.

I went looking for the script because the scene came back to me as I was puzzling over Elizabeth and John Edwards decision to continue with his Presidential campaign. Why spend the last months of your life on airplanes? Why spend the last days of your family’s life together with strangers?

I still can’t imagine what path we’d choose in similar circumstances, but Cyrano’s words helped me better understand the Edwards’ decision.