Detractors of Man of La Mancha, Dale Wasserman’s musical Don Quixote abridgment, aren’t likely to be won over by director Mark Lamos’s respectful Westport Country Playhouse revival. But admirers should enjoy the novelty afforded by the infusion of political and folk elements.
Contemporary influence is seen in the modern mufti worn by the cast (before they don Fabian Fidel Aguilar’s period pieces), and the uniformed bullyboys evoking Franco’s Guardia Civil. The dungeon’s famous staircase to Inquisition oblivion descends at an angle from upstage right like the jaws of a T. rex, against designer Wilson Chin’s towering rear wall stained with sweat and blood. (Westport could easily run Kiss of the Spider Woman in rep on this set.) Instead of a show curtain, Chin offers a giant iron gate not unlike the one from Peter Brook’s legendary Marat/Sade, used at the end, as Brook’s was, to electric effect. Speaking of electric effects, Alan C. Edwards’s light plot captures the characters in warm specials accentuated with red and blue highlights, leaving creepily murky areas on the sidelines as if the entire event were getting illumination from Chin’s high windows above. Really stunning work from the designers, and a subtle reminder that the phenomenon of officially-sanctioned terror remains very much with us.
The load of Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion’s score is carried by only seven musicians, a choice that may or may not have been dictated by economy but proves inspired. Under Andrew David Sotomayor’s direction, the Broadway numbers land with a genuine Spanish flavor, guitar, maracas, castanets and tom-toms played up and brass muted. And with musical stagers Marcos Santana and Lamos incorporating all manner of rhythmic claps and flamenco taps and Spanish poses, and a pair of Equus-worthy horses to boot, Man of La Mancha gains a festive, not inappropriate touch of zarzuela which, again, makes the familiar seem new.
The other headline here is lead Philip Hernandez. The only man who has sung both Valjean and Javert in Broadway’s Les Misérables (though not, unfortunately, at the same time) can be expected to deliver in the pipes department, and he does, but it’s his command of the role that’s notable. His Cervantes is genuinely world-weary and bitter rather than the usual expansive emcee, and his Quixote actually changes over time, taking on deeper levels of madness as the action progresses. The performance’s intelligence is matched by that of Gisela Adisa as Aldonza, who struggles with the high notes but not at all with taking the wretched scullery maid/prostitute out of the realm of cliché into full life.
If I were to carp, I’d point to the inadequate emphasis on the prologue, which sets up Cervantes’ effort to save his precious manuscript from burning by the other prisoners. They don’t establish what’s at stake in the presentation of the yarn—is the cast too preoccupied with its expanded chorus duties to act the thing with fullest conviction?—so there’s minimal menace or suspense. Lurking in the shadows as the cynical prisoner who plays Dr. Carrasco, Clay Singer strongly registers the nihilism Quixote has sworn to combat. But like Velma Kelly, Singer can’t do it alone.
Man of La Mancha opened September 29, 2018, at Westport Country Playhouse (Westport, CT) and runs through October 13. Tickets and information: westportplayhouse.org
