Central City Opera‘s “Man of La Mancha” is as dark as it is sentimental, an argument for sustaining hope in a pitiless universe.
Inspired by Miguel de Cervantes’ 1651 epic “Don Quixote,” the play begins as Cervantes and his manservant are tossed into a Spanish Inquisition prison. They join a disparate crowd of rapists, thieves and vagabonds who immediately stage a mock trial.
* * * ½ Musical
In his own defense, Cervantes stages a play about a visionary, aging knight-errant whose goal is to fight injustice. (Was Don Quixote the world’s first superhero?) The other inmates are incredulous, then amused, and eventually absorbed by the story.
The prisoners drop hints about the parts they’ll play. Aldonza (Lucy Schaufer) pops one of the guards in the face, foreshadowing her resistance to Don Quixote’s chaste affections. Pedro (Alexander James York) leads a swaggering group of thugs who will be the problematic muleteers. The prison governor, hefty and multiply tattooed (Adelmo Guidarelli), becomes Quixote’s protector.
Robert Orth plays Don Quixote. In Orth’s interpretation, Quixote is determined but alarmingly frail, his eyes as bright as his flesh is faded. And his hair! It’s worse than Donald Trump‘s, and equally convincing.
He comes to life when he seeks a token from the tart Aldonza, whom he sees as Dulcinea, the lady he serves in chivalry, but founders when he’s abused by the vicious men who rape Aldonza. (That scene accounts for the production’s PG rating, and it’s pretty brutal.)
Court Watson’s set is deceptively simple, with a lot of chairs and a couple of trunks and garment racks for costumes and props. Quixote’s horse and Sancho’s donkey are played, mostly for comic effect, by two actresses wearing skeletal masks like those used in “Equus.”
Director Paul Curran and conductor Adam Turner keep a brisk pace — sometimes too brisk. Quixote’s famous fight with a windmill is nearly over before it begins. And the Moorish dance scene suggests Bollywood, but that’s not bad, just novel.
When “Man of La Mancha” was released as a movie in 1972, making “The Impossible Dream” a popular hit that’s a standard at piano lounges, it suggested the (perhaps quixotic) hopefulness of the growing social justice community.
In 2015, in the wake of publicized and suppressed evidence of police-civilian conflicts, it feels more like an anachronism. Orth rallies the audience to join in “The Impossible Dream,” but today, do we put the emphasis on “impossible” or on “dream”?
Claire Martin: 303-954-1477, cmartin@denverpost.com or twitter.com/byclairemartin
“MAN OF LA MANCHA”
Written by Dale Wasserman, music by Mitch Leigh, lyrics by Joe Darion. Featuring Robert Orth, Keith Jameson, Lucy Schaufer, Adelmo Guidarelli and April Martin. Through Aug. 9 at Central City Opera House, 124 Eureka St., Central City. Tickets at 303-292-6700 or online at centralcityopera.org