Man of La Mancha - Bravo!

I know there are exalted critics who dismiss "Man of La Mancha" as plebeian entertainment. What can I say? It's hard to hold out hope for people with wax heads who go walking in the sun. The mere mortals I know, leaving the theatre with The Impossible Dream finale still ringing in their heads, all felt exhilarated.

Why? If it's not Gershwin or Kurt Weill, what is it? Answer: Just what the reviewers said it was when it opened on Broadway almost exactly 40 years ago: "One of the finest and most original works in the music theatre. Bold and original….. Eloquent…..A triumph!" The splendid Pirates production at the International School last week marked the sixth time I have seen it and everything they said still goes.

The play celebrates Miguel de Cervantes, who wrote "Don Quixote," that enduring classic of world literature, by dramatising his imprisonment during the Spanish Inquisition. It unfolds in a brilliantly interwoven play-within-a-play: In one, the legendary knight errant, Don Quixote, tilts at windmills, champions the oppressed and, his senses disordered by fantasies of chivalry, sees in Aldonza the whore the "fair and virginal lady" he will worship and revere. In the other, Cervantes himself is thrown into a dark prison cell with his Sancho Panza, his faithful manservant, to await trial by the Inquisition as a heretic, with only his wits to keep safe from his fellow inmates, a band of bloodthirsty thieves and murderers, his most precious possession -the manuscript of a novel called "Don Quixote."

"Man of La Mancha" may be a great musical play, but it is not an easy one to stage; highest marks to Pirate Productions for plunging into a tangle of stagecraft to take it on, and my sympathies herewith to all theatrelovers in Luxembourg who missed seeing it. An elongated stepped stage and deft use of lighting turn the brooding cell where the Inquisition holds its prisoners into a wayside inn -- the grand castle of Quixote's fevered imagination -- and then into the La Mancha home of Cervantes' alter ego, the country squire Alonso Quijana.

Brian Parker, who directed an excellent version of "Company" a few years ago, says he wants to quit directing, but his inventive yet focused touch with "La Mancha" will make it hard for Pirates to let him walk away. The orchestra, from the goose bump producing overture to the last notes, was, as it should be, the backbone on which the entire production was built, and it was superb. Plaudits to director Philip Dutton.

I have known Malcolm Turner as a reliable spear-carrier in any number of plays, but I see now that he was only biding his time. He was made for the Cervantes-Quixote role. He imbues the knight errant with the infinitely appealing insanity Dale Wasserman, the play's author, faithfully modelled on the original, yet plays the Cervantes role with steel and tenacity, a man who will stand up to both the Church court and the murderous wretches holding his manuscript hostage. His singing is heartfelt and affecting, and with defiant eyes shining out of a gaunt face, he wrings every last measure of emotion out of the death scene.

Danny Wells, on the other hand, has known Pirates stardom going back to her standout performance as Tevye's long-suffering wife Golde in "Fiddler on the Roof" and, hey, she's still got it. There was never any question about her ability to belt out a great show tune, but in her song. "Aldonza," in which she bitterly spells out the sordid details of her life -- " spawned in a ditch bride to the murdering scum of the earth" she simply tears your heart out. And to watch her closely as Quixote sings "The Impossible Dream" is to see her evolve from Aldonza the whore to the Dulcinea of the befuddled old man's dreams.

Alex Teligadas' Sancho Panza is wonderfully inventive. He calls himself Quixote's squire, his friend, and you can see his affection for the old goof. But more than pity or friendship make him willing to "follow my master to the end." Isn't he secretly hoping that some of Quixote's idealism will rub off on him? Alex Teligadas makes you think so.

More plaudits: To Mike West and his "murdering scum of the earth," as effective a menacing gang of cutthroats as have trod the boards; and to Liz Turner, Fran Potasnik and Chris Albrecht, whose charming rendition of "I'm Only Thinking of Him" was show-stopper.

"Man of La Mancha," says Brian Parker in his program note, "because there's far too little idealism in the world." I'll drink to that.

Larry EIliott