By Fran Zell
Have you been unable to get out of bed any days lately because the world seems to be dissolving into quicksand under your feet and bed seems to be the safest place to be? Have you had any confusing dreams in which up is down and down is up; war is good and peace is dangerous and your friends won’t talk to you unless you agree with them on everything? Have you wondered if maybe none of it was really a dream? Have you felt compelled to try to set everything right as a lone force of reason and good in a post-truth world full of unreachable stars and unbeatable foes?
If you answered yes to any of the above, perhaps you should run not walk to Lookingglass Theatre’s world premiere production of Circus Quixote, a gravity-defying interpretation of one the greatest literary masterpieces of all time, Don Quijote of La Mancha by the Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes. The show runs through March 30 at Lookingglass’ newly reopened and renamed Joan and Paul Theatre in the historic Chicago Water Tower, 163 E. Pearson St.
Cervantes’ early 17th century novel is a tale of valor and madness in the face of a harsh reality worth losing touch with. It has been called a parody and satire as well as a symbol of resistance to oppression, for which it has been banned by authoritarian governments through the centuries. It’s often more generally described as a story of living life passionately and authentically even when (less-enlightened) others disapprove.
Lookingglass’ adaptation was created in association with Actors Gymnasium, an acclaimed circus arts school and theatre company based in Evanston. Actors Gym artistic director and former circus acrobat Sylvia Hernandez-DiStasi choreographed the circus parts of this beautiful-designed and imaginatively presented show. Her circus is filled with stunning aerial acts and gymnastic feats intended to push the limits of physical, emotional and creative expression.
Lookingglass ensemble members David Catlin and Kerry Catlin co-wrote the script and directed the show. It follows the same general premise of the novel: Set long ago in La Mancha, within a “failing empire and unreliable nation,” there lives a Spanish gentleman of low level nobility/wealth, who declares himself a wandering knight on a quest to right wrongs and injustices. This, of course, is our Don Quixote, played by the incredibly talented and seemingly tireless Michel Rodriguez Cintra, a Cuban-born dancer, actor and circus performer. With a splash of metafiction, Quixote is urged into his fantasy world by an authorial character named Cervantes (Eduardo Martinez). Martinez doubles as Sancho Panza, the kind and witty peasant Quixote recruits as his squire/sidekick. Sancho is always ready to prop his master up, one misadventure at a time, starting with the beating Quixote gets after three locals discover there is no money in it for them in the knight-errant game.
“Valor is our currency,” Quixote assures Sancho who would prefer cash, but hangs in anyway, on the flimsy promise that Quixote will make him a governor.
Most of the tension of the show derives from the “good people” of La Mancha—mainly a friend, a family member, a housekeeper, a barber/doctor, and a nun—whose definition of sanity vis a vis the status quo runs counter to Don Quixote’s. They decide that the romantic books about chivalry he has been reading have destroyed his brain, and in a scene that isn’t portrayed as darkly as the deed merits, they burn them. This accomplished ensemble includes Micah Figueroa, Julian Hester, Laura Murillo Hart, Andrea San Miquel, and Ayana Strutz, each playing multiple characters who alternately berate, challenge, abuse and/or enchant Quixote, ultimately vanquishing him back to the rocking chair that he had so valiantly imagined into his powerful steed.
Especially notable in the ensemble is Figueroa, as skilled and daring a circus performer as Cintra. Together they captivate the audience with thrilling acrobatic feats, including dreamy “chase” scenes in which they entwine themselves into turning arms of a stylized windmill or climb high above the stage onto slender poles, ultimately each spinning around in a graceful arabesque.
Murillo Hart is also impressive, deftly shape shifting from docile housekeeper to sadistic prostitute to the elusive beauty on a trapeze who becomes Quixote’s Dulcinea, the woman he adores from a safe, idealistic distance.
Circus Quixote grew out of a shorter, earlier work called Circus Quixotic that the Catlins wrote and Hernandez-DiStasi choreographed for a production two years ago at Actors Gymnasium. Geared for a young audience and predominantly circus based, it featured Cintra and Figueroa with a cast of five other adult actors, and ten teenage gymnasts. This was during the time that Lookingglass closed its Water Tower Works doors, going the way of too many other fine theaters who were hit hard financially by the Covid lockdown.
It’s both heartening and exciting that Lookingglass is making a comeback, fueled by a new business model steeped in educational and community programming and collaborations with other theater companies. In an online conversation with Circus Quixote co-creators, Kerry Catlin observes that the show resonates with Lookingglass in part because of the theme of pursuing a dream that some would have written off as madness.
In the same conversation David Catlin reflects on how Circus speaks in a dream language—“irrational, illogical, impractical” that creates a compelling place we want to run away to…away from the cares and burdens and gloom of our own world.
It does add up to a solid and entertaining show, expertly performed. But it could be a more meaningful show if it went deeper. Various times Quixote is referred to as the “knight of the sad and sorrowful face.” But we have no idea why he is sad—sad enough to be driven to madness. Man of La Mancha, the iconic 1965 musical adaptation of the novel, uses the Spanish Inquisition as context for Quixote’s desire to gallop away from reality. The story of the “mad” knight is performed as a play within a play in a prison where Cervantes as a character is awaiting his trial.
Cervantes the writer lived his entire life against the darkness of the Inquisition (it lasted nearly 250 years ) and against the backdrop of an empire in the throes of collapse, which took about 150 years beginning a few years before Cervantes was born. During his soldiering years, he was badly injured, then imprisoned and enslaved by the Turks for five years and later imprisoned by the Spanish government over “mismanagement” of a job that he had no control over managing well. He wrote part of the novel while he was imprisoned for the thankless job.
There are certainly parallels in today’s world that could help the play become more a reflection of our own society, in order to spark discussion and possible social change. It’s a hard role for commercial theater to navigate any more with new work, the way we’ve become so polarized and fractured in our values and beliefs. Someone is always going to be offended. Perhaps a good place for Lookingglass to start would be by dusting off the seemingly archaic concept at the heart of the story: “chivalry.”
Chivalry is a dead word in the context of knights of old. But in a world that still lives and dies by the sword, the concept of chivalry has a lot to teach us about how to live. Look it up. Chivalry is about things like kindness, honesty, generosity to others, protecting the weak and the poor, respecting women, acting correctly when fighting (i.e. leaving women and children and other unarmed foes alone). Faith in the future.
Some of these concepts are already dead or dying. We desperately need theater to help us to rethink chivalry and talk about it in its purest form. Circus Quixote could perhaps accomplish this by dwelling less on escapism and more on the darkness because in the illogical way of both the circus and the theater, darkness can shine light on things we wouldn’t otherwise see.
Circus Quixote runs Tuesdays through Sundays until March 30 at the Joan and Paul Theatre, 163 E. Pearson Street at Michigan Avenue, presented by Lookingglass Theatre Company in Association with Actors Gymnasium. Tickets are $35 to $99, available online or from the box office, 312-337-0665.
The show stars Michel Rodriguez Cintra with Micah Figueroa, Julian Hester, Eduardo Martinez, Laura Murillo Hart, Andrea San Miguel and Ayana Strutz. It was written and directed by David Catlin and Kerry Catlin with circus and movement choreographed by Sylvia Hernandez-DiStasi. The team also includes Nikolaj Sorenson, Director of Production; Courtney O’Neill, Scenic Designer; Daphne Agosin, Lighting Designer; Grover Hollway, Sound Designer; Sully Ratke, Costume Designer; Kevin O’Donnell, composer; and Grace Needlman, puppet design.
Photos by Joe Mazza/brave lux
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