Eric Hissom as Cyrano.

Ah, that Cyrano. What a charmer. Too bad about the nose.

Thus goes the conflict at the center of Folger’s updated take on the classic Cyrano de Bergerac story. Director Aaron Posner’s Cyrano comes with a new, contemporary translation and a magnetic leading man in Eric Hissom, a boastful and proud man that can live up to his own ego, whether he’s killing 100 men in one drunken brawl, or composing impromptu poetry with barely a moment of thought. He just can’t get the woman he loves, Roxane (a ravishing Brenda Withers), to look past his most distinctive appendage (his nose; get your mind out of the gutter) — or at least, he’s too afraid to try. Instead, he’ll do the dirty work for Christian, a man whose physique has gotten her attention (Bobby Moreno), writing love letters to Roxane on his linguistically clumsy rival’s behalf.

Michael Hollinger’s translation of the French classic has a casual feel to it — it’s conversational, moving forward through snappy prose rather than poetry, and draws laghs whether Cyrano’s launching into a pun-laced stream of self mockery or convincing Roxane’s portly nursemaid (Todd Scofield, in drag and having a ball) to wolf down some pastries and give her charge some privacy.

The staging has a nice energy — Cyrano’s 100-man face off, with the use of dramatic lighting and slicing sound effects, has a pulse-quickening theatricality to it. The play’s strangest quirk is a hasty, flash-forward ending that moves the characters from the heat of war to more than a decade later, when age has rendered them feeble and filled with regret. Despite the jolting transition, the final resolution between Cyrano and the woman he loves is heartfelt and tragically moving.

The most unconvincing thing about Folger’s Cyrano may, in fact, be its central conflict. As the title character, Hissom is so charismatic, dashing, romantic and virile (he sings, too), that it’s hard to imagine he has all that much trouble with the ladies, disfigurement aside. But without that suspension of disbelief, we wouldn’t get the chance to spend the evening with these characters, and that would be the real tragedy.

Cyrano runs through June 5 at Folger Shakespeare Library. Tickets are available online.