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Dale Wasserman, Mitch Leigh, and Joe Darion's iconic American musical, "Man of La Mancha", is, perhaps, best known for its signature song, "The Impossible Dream." It's easy, however, to overlook the time period during which "La Mancha" was brought to the stage, and the subject matter which led to the song itself. Produced during the Viet Nam War, close on the heels of the Civil Rights movement, there were any number of deferred dreams which seemed at the time impossible to achieve and almost entirely out of reach for thousands and thousands of people struggling to live in a free country. Wasserman and Leigh's treatment of the centuries-old material of Miguel de Cervantes's novel, "Don Quixote", was fresh, relevant, and thought-provoking then, and remains so today.
Cervantes composed his original novel with tongue-in-cheek satire and double entendre-filled style so as to avoid censure -- or worse. In seeming to poke fun at the adventure-filled "knight-errant" heroic writing of the day, he managed to cloak his barbed criticism of the religious and political intolerance that he so acutely observed and about which he wished to speak out. In researching the time period of the play and becoming acquainted with the Spanish Inquisition, among much that I've learned, it's been interesting to find out that water-boarding was one of many techniques employed to elicit confessions from accused heretics and "Conversos" (Jews and Muslims who were suspected of still practicing their native religions in secret defiance of Ferdinand and Isabel's proclaimed edict that Catholicism was the accepted and unifying faith of their monarchy), and who no doubt populate the prison holding cell in which La Mancha takes place. Indeed, it doesn't take much time to scratch beneath the surface of the musical to discover its immediacy nearly 50 years after its Broadway debut.
"Man of La Mancha" inspires us to cling to our ideals, to fight for tolerance and justice in the world, no matter how hard the going may get, no matter how insurmountable the obstacles confronting us may seem. It is also a marvelously theatrical piece, dependent as it is on the imagination of the characters in the story to create something out of nothing and to believe passionately and whole-heartedly in what they make manifest out of the most meagre and hopeless of circumstances.
It is a pleasure to return to Knoxville and to the Clarence Brown Theatre to direct "Man of La Mancha." May this wonderful musical inspire audiences throughout its run -- and continue to do so for as long as we must "run where the brave dare not go."
The University of Tennessee | College of Arts & Sciences | UTK Theatre Department | Knoxville, Tennessee 37996 | 865-974-5161
