Home / 2011-2012 SEASON / MAN OF LA MANCHA / DIRECTOR'S NOTES

by Director Charles Morey

Man of La Mancha is a 20th century musical theatre piece, based in part upon a 19th century stage play, in turn adapted from an early 17th century novel, which was based upon a 16th century play, which was inspired by odes and romances dating to the 14th century.

This is possibly of moderate interest to those who enjoy taking a long view of intellectual history, literature and theatre. But it becomes of greater interest when you consider the play in terms of its dramaturgical and thematic structure, because the play itself operates on a series of levels: first as a musical play, which we will perform on the stage of the Pioneer Theatre, in which we - as a theatre company - tell:

A fictional story of the imprisonment of an historical figure, Miguel de Cervantes, in which the character of Cervantes and a group of Prisoners enact:

• the story of Alonso Quijana, in which he enacts:
• the character and story of Don Quixote.
• In other words, within the play itself, you have four layers of theatrical reality - of metaphor - compounding the layers of literary, dramatic and mythic tradition in the tale of “Don Quixote.”

So, ultimately, Man of La Mancha is very much about the act of storytelling itself and what it means. It is about imagination and the power of imagination to create and relate stories. It is about metaphor and how metaphor operates within the human mind and what it means to the human soul; and perhaps, finally, about the importance and the transcendent power of art.

In a sense it is the ability to create and relate stories—to think metaphorically—that defines us as human beings. I personally find it interesting that the deeper the piece delves into the layers of storytelling, the closer to madness is the story teller perceived and the more dangerous the storyteller becomes to the forces of repression. (It is not without accident that this is a theatre piece from the 1960s.)

The arc of the play is the movement of Cervantes, Aldonza, and the prisoners from despair to hope. The engine that accomplishes that arc is the communal enactment of the story of Don Quixote. It is not the story itself necessarily —but the act of storytelling—that reminds these people of their common humanity and the basic dignity of the individual. Isn’t that ultimately what theatre is about?  Seven times a year, this theatre company invites nine hundred and thirty-two diverse individuals a night into a large room where they will sit with their neighbors, some known to them, some not. At a lighted end of that room, we tell them a story. This group of people, now an “audience,” responds to that story as a group. They laugh together, they cry together. And through that act of responding communally to a story, we are reminded of our own common humanity and the basic dignity of the individual human soul. In a sense every play is about that in general but this play is about that act of communal storytelling, and what that act means, very specifically.