FOLLOW HIS NOSE.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

THE SCHNOZ is huge, beaklike and pale, the kind of thing you might see on one of those toy Groucho Marx glasses and eyebrow sets. It pulls actor Mark Harelik's face into a perpetual sneer. About the only thing that wouldn't fit into this nose is Cyrano de Bergerac's sense of self-loathing. Born, of course, out of unrequited love for his cousin, Roxane.

Harelik's turn as the wordsmith swordsman of Edmond Rostand's ``Cyrano de Bergerac'' at South Coast Repertory Theatre is the kind of work that psychoanalysts could parse over for days. Rarely has a Cyrano seemed this miserable, this determined to get himself in the way of the flying log that takes his life. The man may be admired, worshipped, the best blade and the sharpest wit in France. Yet the love he can't reveal (Niles and Daphne had nothing on Monsieur de B.) leaves him paralyzed and agonized. In one scene, he spends a scene moving from a frenzy of rage to childlike pleading at the mention of Roxane's name - ``Oh, don't tell her!''

Director Mark Rucker, one of the savviest interpreters of the classics in the Southland, plays things largely straight ahead this time around. The translation, by Anthony Burgess, is familiar and feels contemporary. Shigeru Yaji's costumes and wigs are gorgeous, the settings often spare but period-perfect.

``Cyrano'' marks the largest cast ever to take SCR's main stage. The production runs a not-too-leisurely three hours and contains enough romance, comic brio and despair to make the time fly. That Rucker, Harelik and company actually unleash this beast twice a day on Saturdays and Sundays means that some people - Harelik most notably - will definitely be eating their Wheaties over the next few weeks. That, or risk an on-stage collapse.

Before the obligatory harpsichord music opening, the bare stage is occupied only by a small, none-too-fancy chandelier lying neglected on the ground. Once the action swings into gear, citizens arrive on stage to hang the chandelier and assemble the Paris theater where the hapless drunk Lingniere (Richard Doyle) fears for his life, where handsome Christian de Neauvillette (Ryan Bittle) reveals his love for Roxane and where that same Roxane (Susannah Schulman) endures the flirtings of the Comte de Guiche (Gregory Itzin).

As scenes of ``you are here'' exposition go, this one's a peach. Half of aristocratic Paris comes in, dressed like peacocks - primping, posing and mingling. Schulman's Roxane, tall, blond and quick-witted, is clearly the belle of the theater without having to utter a word. When Cyrano finally arrives, he comes in from the back of the theater, only to dismantle the ham actor Montfleury (Martha McFarland), followed by a nobleman whose wit can't measure up and another whose sword skills are similarly lacking. Once he's finished, Cyrano - who can't afford a meal and won't accept a handout - flirts with an impressed flower girl. Now that, as the script takes great pains to emphasize, is ``panache.''

Ensuing scenes play with the same pulsating energy: Cyrano and the soldiers carousing at Ragueneau's pastry shop, the joint wooing of Roxane by Cyrano and Christian outside her chamber, the siege at Arras and, finally, Roxane and Cyrano alone on a bench in a leaf-strewn convent garden 14 years later. He still hasn't told her. She still doesn't know.

Lush, romantic and swoon-worthy, this production certainly is. Bittle and Schulman wring every sigh and tear out of aborted romance between Christian and Roxane. Michael McShane's jovial Ragueneau enlivens every scene he happens into. Itzin is appropriately hissable as the treacherous de Guiche, a character who Rostand - the old softy - permits to reform.

But the production belongs, quite rightly, to Harelik. Normally an actor with an everyday, Tom Hanks-ian appeal, Harelik can duel, versify, inspire and woo with equal ability. Misery and panache clearly aren't mutually exclusive.

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

CYRANO DE BERGERAC - Three and one half stars

Where: South Coast Repertory Theatre, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday; through June 27.

Tickets: $27 to $55. Call [phone].

In a nutshell: Mark Harelik is as lovelorn and miserable a Cyrano as ever picked up a sword.

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Love is in the air for Susannah Schulman and Ryan Bittle, background, but Mark Harelik suffers mightily in South Coast Repertory's ``Cyrano de Bergerac.''