Performing Arts: Theater

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When Man of La Mancha, a musical based on the legendary tale of Don Quixote, premiered at an off-Broadway theater on November 22, 1965, the audience responded with immense enthusiasm. It was so well-received at the small Anta Washington Square Theatre that the production was transferred to the Martin Beck Theatre on Broadway in March 1968. The Broadway production ran for 2,328 performances, the third longest-running musical of the 1960s.

The original cast included Richard Kiley (Don Quixote), Joan Diener (Aldonza), and Irving Jacobson (Sancho). In 1972, a film version of the musical was released, featuring Peter O'Toole, Sophia Loren, and James Coco.

Dale Wasserman wrote Man of La Mancha after his television play I, Don Quixote. The lyrics were written by Joe Darion and the music by Mitch Leigh.

The musical begins with novelist Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra imprisoned during the Spanish Inquisition and awaiting trial. While in jail, Cervantes and his faithful squire must defend themselves in an underworld trial from the other inmates while The Governor, the self-declared leader of the prison inmates, observes.

Accustomed to telling stories, Cervantes convinces The Governor to allow him to defend himself through entertainment. The story begins with a country squire named Alonso Quijana, who has left his family in search of adventures, calling himself the knight errant Don Quixote of La Mancha, the righter of wrongs.

Don Quixote and his squire leave his village and, along the way, Quixote attempts to fight a windmill thinking it is a giant. Eventually, the two men come across a small inn occupied by drunken men and several women. Don Quixote picks one of the women-the whore Aldonza-and worships her as his fair Dulcinea. He asks her for a token to hold while he goes into battle, and the bewildered Aldonza assumes he is just like every man she has encountered. She angrily flings a dish rag to him.

However, Aldonza is unused to the gentle manner in which Don Quixote speaks, and when he successfully defends her against a whole band of manhandling hooligans, she is finally won over to his quest which he describes to her in song as "The Impossible Dream."

Meanwhile, however, Quijana's family has convinced the self-important Dr. Carrasco to retrieve their mad patriarch. Carrasco is not as interested in the Quijana's well being as he is in the old man's fortune, which Carrasco stands to inherit as he is engaged to Quijana's niece. When the doctor arrives at the inn, Quijana mistakes him for the Great Enchanter, the most dangerous enemy of all good men. Don Quixote prepares to do battle once more, but this time, he has no defense against his enemy's weapon--a bright, mirrored shield in which the old man can see nothing but his old, foolish reflection. Thus defeated, Quijana returns home and agrees to draw up his will in his niece's favor--that is, until he receives an unexpected guest from the inn who begs him not to renounce "The Impossible Dream."

The Governor is impressed with Cervantes defense, as are the other prisoners, and the novelist's crimes are forgiven. But now the guards have returned, and Cervantes has managed to defend himself in front of one court only to be dragged in front of another. It has not been wasted time, however, for as he climbs the steps out of his dark prison, he can hear the prisoners below still singing "The Impossible Dream."