After much too long a pause, Lookingglass is back. And with style. Circus Quixote, Lookingglass Theatre's adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes’ classic novel, Don Quijote of La Mancha, is a perfect example of what the theater company does best: combining heart with whimsy, magic with humor. The tale about a kind dreamer who may be touched by madness and who goes on an impossible quest to make the world a better place couldn’t come at a more opportune time.
Originally published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, Cervantes’ novel is considered among the founding works of Western literature. Adapted and directed by Kerry and David Catlin in association with the Actors Gymnasium, Lookingglass’ version largely follows Cervantes’ episodic structure but with characteristic Lookingglass touches: acrobatic movement, oversized puppetry, song, slapstick and even a talking monkey. It is also often laugh-out funny with groan-worthy puns (“Any damsels in this dress?”), and a set design that includes a wall of books and a stylized windmill. The work of costume designer Sully Ratke and puppet designer Grace Needlman calls to mind in both weird and wonderful ways Monty Python and the Grail, the Bread and Puppet Theater, the films of Guillermo del Toro, and even the strange characters that inhabit the cantina in Star Wars.
When we first meet our hero, Don Quijada is an “hidalgo,” the lowest member of Spanish nobility, from a fictional area of Spain called La Mancha. Living with his niece and housekeeper, he reads so many chivalric romances that it literally goes to his head (a book is precariously perched on his noggin in case there was any doubt). Eventually he decides to mount his imaginary horse and become a knight errant. Donning a suit of armor and the familiar wide-brimmed gold helmet that he believes will make him invulnerable to any dangers he might encounter, he renames himself Don Quixote de La Mancha and, with his squire in toe, a farm laborer named Sancho Panza, he goes off to see the world. But things are not always as they seem. On his travels he arrives at an inn believing it to be a castle and confuses windmills for giants.
Cervantes’ tale has always left the story open to interpretation. Is Don Quixote a madman or a well-meaning, if confused, soul whose sole intention is to help others, a dreamer lost in a dream? Is he a wandering fool who has spent all his money on books of chivalry? Or is he like the rest of us, hoping for the best even during the worst of times?
The cast is uniformly excellent. Doubling as Don Quijada, the Spanish gentleman, and Don Quixote, the knight errant who dreams of righting the worlds wrongs, Michel Rodriguez Cintra is likable, even endearing: part Everyman, part knightly wanderer. We care what happens to him. Laura Murillo Hart dons many hats here: as the Housekeeper and as a master puppeteer and she has a wonderful singing voice to boot. As Sancho Panza, Eduardo Martinez is Quixote’s affable, if world-weary, sidekick and erstwhile companion. (He also plays Cervantes himself as the narrator.) Initially, Quixote and Sancho don’t appear to have much in common but, as it turns out, the tall, thin Quixote and the stolid, cynical Sancho make for a great friendship—the dreamer v. the realist—and perfect foils for each other akin to Beckett’s Vladmir and Estragon or, for that matter, Tolkien’s Frodo and Sam. Julian Hester is a standout as well in many roles, but he is especially hilarious as an effeminate King Arthur.
Don Quixote sees the world as he wants it to be; Sancho sees the world as it is. But maybe, Cervantes seems to suggest, we have more in common with one another than we think. Or as Sancho says at one point, “We’re all one and the same when we’re asleep.”
Either way, Circus Quixote is a wonderful return to form.
Lookingglass Theatre Company’s Circus Quixote is playing through March 30 at the Joan and Paul Theatre at Water Tower Water Works, 163 E. Pearson St. at Michigan Avenue. For tickets and information, see their website.
All photos by Joe Mazza.
For more information on this and other productions, see theatreinchicago.com.
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