“He’s such a mythic character — but you can’t really play that,” he said, “so I’ve just been trying to understand how he’s human, and finding his size within that humanness. That’s the process that I feel I’m in now.”

Rostand’s 1897 play tells of a 17th-century philosophical poet and soldier who feels too unlovable to court Roxanne, the woman he loves (played at Trinity Rep by Angela Brazil) despite his considerable verbal skill. Instead, he woos her on behalf of handsome, but inarticulate, fellow-soldier Christian (Noah Brady). In film versions, Jose Ferrer won an Oscar for his 1950 title role performance, Gerard Depardieu played him in 1990, and Steve Martin earned our laughs as a Cyrano-like modern character in the 1987 Roxanne.

Director Amanda Dehnert stepped over during this dinner break and, before the pizza arrived, contributed some observations about the complicated hero.

“Well, I think he lives his life without restraint — except in one aspect, romantic love,” she said. “In every other aspect, the thing that makes him larger than life is just that he doesn’t censor anything and does exactly what he wants to do and does it very, very well.”

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“He doesn’t compromise,” Hantman added.

“Yes, he doesn’t compromise,” she agreed. “He has the system of honor and integrity worked out in his brain, and all his choices are based on that.”

The pair are enjoying working with the text by English novelist Burgess, who has a lyrical and entertaining way with words. “Oh, that this too, too solid nose would melt” is one of his contributions in the adaptation. He did sensible things to make the play work for modern ears, such as replacing familiar quotations of French poets with quotes from and references to Shakespeare.

“Structurally it’s so perfect,” Hantman said. “There are five acts, and each one goes —” he made an airplane sound and soaring gesture with his hand. “He’s meticulous about letting the rhyme scheme, for example, or the structure that he chooses for a section reflect the meaning. He’s really into the language — which is great for a play about a guy who’s really into language.”

Dehnert appreciates the liveliness and timeliness of the translation, but Burgess’s understanding of Cyrano’s motivation also agrees with hers. “When he’s talking about a letter he’s going to write to Roxanne, he says to himself: ‘Write, fold, give it her, transform my life,’ ” she said. “That was this huge reason that I went for this translation. That tiny little section.”

Which is not to say that the adaptation doesn’t present challenges. At times, she said, “the script gets tough in sections where it seems to spin off into poetry for poetry’s sake or language for language’s sake, and lose at times its thread of intention or action, what he’s actually trying to do.” In some passages the pre-Burgess play was, after all, an example of century-old overheated prose style. The director has to detect where, through the actors, to rein the language back.

As has been announced, Dehnert is leaving Trinity Rep after this production to pursue her first love: musical theater. She has accepted a tenure-track position at Northwestern University, where she will teach that specialty but is also encouraged to pursue outside theater projects. Next year she will return to Providence to direct a Trinity production of The Fantastiks. The 1996 Trinity Conservatory graduate was acting artistic director of the company since November 2004, after the departure of Oskar Eustis, until Curt Columbus began his duties as artistic director this past January.

“Of course, I’ll miss Trinity, but I feel like it’s time for me to move on,” Dehnert said. “Northwestern is incredibly committed to the artistic lives of its faculty and very supportive of my continuing my professional career. It works for them too. And that’s not the sort of thing that really works here. So I think it’s the right next thing for me to do.”

CYRANO DE BERGERAC | Through June 11 |  Trinity Rep, 201 Washington St, Providence | 401.351.4242