A modern version of the musical Man of La Mancha. Man from La Mancha
Hello! With you in the program "Music Hall" - Mikhail Predtechensky.
At the end of the 50s of the last century, another episode of the popular program was released on the American television channel CBC DuPont Show of the Month. Within its framework, every month the audience was offered a small original production based on a classic work. This time it was a play by a 33-year-old television writer Dale Wasserman , created according to the great book Miguel de Cervantes.
By the way, producers DuPont show The play was renamed because D. Wasserman entitled his play "Man of La Mancha" . And this was the beginning of the history of the creation of the famous musical "Man of La Mancha" .
1. The song “Man of La Mancha” from the American musical of the same name is playing.
Parents Dale Wasserman came to America at the beginning of the 20th century from Ukraine. However, Dale himself, who was born in the small town of Rhinelander, Wisconsin, already considered himself a Native American.
The family had no money, and therefore the young man was unable to go to university. What he lacked in education, he made up for with a love of reading. Dale decided to devote his life to the then nascent television industry. He started as a lighting technician, then became an assistant director and producer. Finally, he himself wrote a play based on "Don Quixote" .
2. The song “To Each His Dulcinea” from the American musical “Man of La Mancha” is played.
The production received good ratings. Friends advised me to move it to the theater. However, on Broadwayplay "Man of La Mancha" failed miserably. D. Wasserman Out of grief, he solemnly promised that he would never remember her again. However, the producer Albert Marre Having lost a lot of money on the production, for some reason he believed in D. Wasserman’s work. "Perhaps we could turn it into a musical?- he suggested. - A musical performance about Don Quixote is so cool!”. At first D. Wasserman took these words for a bad joke, and then got excited about the idea and began work. This is how he met the poet Joe Darion, who wrote the lyrics for the future musical, and musician Mitch Leigh. "Man of La Mancha" was his first experience as a composer. Before that, Mitch Lee was involved in arranging other people's works. This is how the team that created musical "Man of La Mancha" .
3. The song "Aldonza" from the American musical "Man of La Mancha" is playing.
Play "I, Don Quixote" and musical "Man of La Mancha" - these are, rather, free improvisations on the theme of the great novel. Main characters - writer Miguel Cervantes and him servant who were thrown into prison by the Inquisition. There they find themselves face to face with a crowd of robbers and murderers. In order to avoid reprisals and somehow stall for time, M. Cervantes asks the gang leader, the so-called "ruler", for permission to tell the story of a landowner named Alonso Quijano. He is outraged by the evil that people do and turns into a traveling champion of justice. Don Quixote. He is considered crazy, since kindness and nobility in this world have long been a source of ridicule.
4. The song “Little Bird, Little Bird” from the American musical “Man of La Mancha” is playing.
The story told M. Cervantes, makes a huge impression on thieves and robbers. He won this trial. Now the guards come for him to lead him to the Inquisition trial along the stairs leading from the dungeon. He hears his fellow prisoners singing a song about an unattainable dream - the one he taught them man from La Mancha.
5. The song "Impossible Dream" from the American musical "Man of La Mancha" is playing.
After failing at Broadway plays "Man of La Mancha" , producer Albert Marr and author of the play Dale Wasserman We approached the production of the musical very carefully. To begin with, it was shown in a small Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut. Having made sure that the provincial audience received the show favorably, the producers moved the musical to the theater ANTA Washington Square Theater in New York and then on Broadway. The premiere took place at the end of November 1965. And it was a real success! "Man of La Mancha" walked there every day for almost seven years 2328 times!
6. The song "Dulcinea" from the American musical "Man of La Mancha" is playing.
Well, in 1966 the musical became the main triumph of the ceremony "Tony". He received 8 awards, including "best musical". A Richard Kiley was recognized best actor for playing roles M. Cervantes And Don Quixote. By the way, a unique case, in 2003, 37 years later new Broadway version of "Man of La Mancha" received three more statuettes "Tony".
7. The song "I Only Thinking Of Him" from the American musical "Man of La Mancha" is playing.
However, the Broadway triumph was just the beginning! In 1972 in Hollywood was filmed movie based on the musical Peter O'Toole starring. well and Dulcinea played brilliantly Sophia Loren. In 1968 "Man of La Mancha" put in France in the translation itself Jacques Brel. Moreover, the famous chansonnier himself played main role.
The musical has been staged several times in Russia. Well, let's finish the story about the musical "Man of La Mancha" again the composition "The Impossible Dream" . This time - in execution Don Quixote. By the way, Dale Wasserman officially considered the author of this expression "impossible dream". And as such it is included in all academic dictionaries of the English language.
8. The song “The Impossible Dream” from the American musical “Man of La Mancha” is performed by Don Quixote.
Before next week and the next musical!
Man of La Mancha is a Broadway musical, as the program told me, and, it would seem, it would look scant on the domestic stage. But no - like this important element The show, as a scenery, surprised me by the fact that it is not inferior to any Monte Cristo - here you have gloomy casemates, and pastoral bouncy houses, and a starry sky, and, of course, a mill. But I didn’t come to look at the beautiful frame, but at the canvas that it framed - incredibly touching story about the poet-taxman Cervantes, who, having landed in prison, turns prisoners into actors and stages another story - about the Knight of the Sad Image, who, in turn, turns the harsh and cruel reality into romantic fairy tale, where the inn is a castle and the whore is a beautiful lady. Unlike Cervantes, whom we know from school textbooks, stage Cervantes, under threat of terrible death at the hands of the Inquisition, creates for this fairy tale a happy ending: old Alonso Quijano does not die in oblivion, surrounded by his inheritance-hungry relatives, but before his death he remembers his exploits thanks to the faithful Sancho and the loving Dulcinea. So, Alonso Quijano died, and Don Quixote is still alive, along with his ineradicable faith in the triumph of truth, generosity, goodness and honor, and thanks to his courage, Cervantes himself fearlessly goes to trial. And the images of both the creator of Don Quixote and his hero were embodied on stage by the amazing actor Vladimir Zeldin, who at almost 95 (!) years old moves and sings in such a way that he looks at most 65. The rest of the actors were also at their best - every character was memorable, right down to the most minor, and I, as an eternal lover of “villains,” especially liked the charisma of the “criminal” opposing Don Quixote in the role of the doctor. Yes, the plot is naive, one would like to propose it for a children's play, yes, the text of the libretto is not high poetry, but at least it is not primitive, and the arias from the first act were repeated in the second, yes, the music is not amazing, but it is pleasant to listen to, yes , the choreography is at a high level, although it is not breathtaking, in general - this is not Juno and Avos, where everything is perfect. And with all this, Man of La Mancha can and should be watched as a beautiful, sincere performance, played with such dedication and even with rapture that you understand that it was not for nothing that it was celebrated by the King of Spain. He captivates, captivates, infects with his game - looking for “pearls in a dung heap”, he does not allow you to laugh at Don Quixote, as if he were an ordinary madman, but makes you empathize with him, like a real knight, and that’s great. We can talk for a long time, but I’ll still sum it up: Man of La Mancha is not just a positive mood that any good musical will provide you with, but also healthy dish from the assortment of food for the soul, destined to go down in the history of Russian theatrical art.
Kommersant, December 16, 2004
Performance of a sad image
Actor Vladimir Zeldin saved director Yuli Gusman
The Russian Army Theater showed the premiere of the old musical "Man of La Mancha" with music by Mitch Lee and directed by Yuli Gusman. The performance is dedicated to the upcoming 90th anniversary of People's Artist of the Soviet Union Vladimir Zeldin, who played Cervantes and Don Quixote. ROMAN DOLZHANSKY was amazed at the energy and vitality of the veteran for three hours.
We do not know on what day exactly the leadership of the Army Theater came up with the idea to call former director The house of cinema, former KVN performer and TV presenter Yuli Gusman to stage a musical, but it was clearly a bad day. Mr. Guzmán produced an expensive monster production. Either the director of "Man of La Mancha" has not been to good theaters for many decades and therefore does not know what is happening on the stages of the world and home country. Or, on the contrary, he is a responsible retrograde and, irritated by modern trends, believes that the theater should be a dusty, bulky monster, intended for lovers of carrion. Or did the Army Theater simply need the name of a character whose face is familiar to television viewers to promote the performance? Then with the same (and perhaps with much greater) success it was possible to invite Andrei Malakhov, Ksenia Sobchak or Maxim Galkin to the director’s table. But they would hardly agree.
One way or another, but the reanimated musical by Dale Wasserman and Jon Darion (back in Soviet times it was performed on the stage of the Mayakovsky Theater directed by Andrei Goncharov, with Alexander Lazarev and Tatyana Doronina in the leading roles) can scare young people who are planning to devote themselves to the theater. On the stage, fake blocks (artist Yuri Antizersky) are tossing with a roar and clanging, smoke is billowing, soloists are singing falsely and the extras are laughing unnaturally. The dances choreographed by Oleg Nikolaev would be suitable for some peripheral choreographic ensemble, but they look strange in a metropolitan musical. It seems that production team was so preoccupied with gathering dear guests for the premiere, a fair share of whom were rumpled regulars of the House of Cinema restaurant, that she did not bother to soberly review her unfortunate brainchild from beginning to end: from the puppet interlude in the prologue to the most vulgar scene of lighting candles of goodness and hope in the finale.
In general, the youngest, most professionally wealthy and most charming character of the evening was a man two, three or even four times older than each of the other participants in the venture - Vladimir Zeldin. They say the Guinness Book of Records is already interested in his new role. Still a People's Artist Soviet Union I will be 90 years old next February. In principle, the theater, including modern theater, knows such examples of longevity. But Vladimir Mikhailovich, at such an old age, does not just go on stage to stroke his pride and remind the public of himself. He plays the main role! And not in some whispering room drama, sitting elegiacally in a chair in front of a hundred fans, but in a musical performance, at one of the most big stages peace, which he for three hours theatrical action leaves only a few times, and then not for long.
The venerable veteran works without any strain - in any case, the beneficiary from the audience does not feel any supertension. And he shakes him with a spear, and throws himself at the mills, and falls when his character is hit, and mistakes the whore Aldonza for the beautiful Dulcinea, not out of dementia, but out of the good-naturedness befitting Don Quixote. If he sings, it is in such a way that he can be heard not only in the stalls, but also in the very last rows of the giant amphitheater, and every word can be heard (by the way, this cannot be said about other actors of the Army Theater). In general, no discounts on old age Vladimir Zeldin does not have to do this. The old actor does not perform tricks, does not perform a tortured record, does not speak before a congress of gerontologists, but simply full force, plays two roles with ease and courage: according to the librettists, the action of “Man of La Mancha” takes place in the prison where Cervantes is thrown and where he transforms into the hero of his novel.
No rational explanations can be given for the Zeldin phenomenon. Well, it’s just that fate gave him a generous gift: not only a long acting life, but also the opportunity to connect different eras. Of course, at this age, every role is worth its weight in gold. It's a shame that the artist expends so much energy in the ridiculous performance of Yuli Gusman. If all this nonsense surrounding him had been removed from the stage, Vladimir Zeldin, even alone, would probably have told, acted out and danced the story of Don Quixote better. True, the libretto of this musical is extremely naive, pretentious and old-fashioned. But only the heart of stone will not tremble when a man, whose contemporaries are almost gone in the world, comes to the fore, looks dispassionately into the hall and says: “I’m going, because someone has to go.”
Izvestia, December 15, 2004
Marina Davydova
Guzman sad image
The long-forgotten musical “Man of La Mancha” was performed at the Russian Army Theater. Vladimir Zeldin played the role of the Knight of the Sad Image. Famous artist preparing to celebrate his 90th birthday. The performance, staged by Yuli Gusman, became a benefit performance for the patriarch of the Russian stage.
Hand on heart, the word “patriarch” suits Zeldin no more than the word “pensioner” suits Maya Plisetskaya. Where this eternal Dance Teacher gets his solar energy from, and what magical batteries he is connected to, I personally don’t understand. And no one seems to understand. But he definitely hid the Makropoulos remedy somewhere. The history of the stage knows cases when an artist at an advanced age played on stage and performed magnificently. The elderly Sarah Bernhardt, as theater legends say, impressed the audience without leaving her chair (she, however, was not even eighty). But Zeldin doesn’t just act, he plays in a musical with all the ensuing circumstances, namely, he moves actively, pronounces long monologues, flashes a dazzling smile and sings a lot. Moreover, he still moves well, reads monologues as if they were written (I personally wouldn’t have learned even two paragraphs from the high-flown nonsense of Dale Wasserman and John Darion), and he sings much better than all the artists involved in the above-mentioned work. He still has a young, pleasant voice and, what is absolutely incredible, youthful energy. And this phenomenon is unlikely to be assessed by a theater critic. Here we also need at least a gerontologist. Actually, if you put Zeldin in a chair and force him to play like the elderly Sarah Bernhardt, this will be pure punishment for him. After all, it is not the depth of penetration into the image that captivates us in this artist. On the contrary, Zeldin always slides on top. But how it glides! He is one of the few on the Russian stage who managed to give light genre(so much in demand in Stalin’s times by both the bloodthirsty authorities and the public tired of political cannibalism) the necessary lightness.
All the other creators of the newly-made Man of La Mancha, including the director, do not know how to glide gracefully. The light genre in their performance looks heavy, not to say shabby: just look at the massive, creaking and frighteningly rumbling scenery, in which it would be more appropriate to place not the heroes of the musical, but Koshchei the Immortal from the films of Alexander Row. This dusty, heavily mothballed theatrical routine, which surrounded the brilliant Zeldin, in the 60s (and maybe even in the 70s) would have been extremely appropriate in the city of Baku on the stage of some cultural center named after. Akhundova. But in beginning of XXI centuries in one of the theater capitals of the world, it is truly awkward to look at her. Scolding Yuli Gusman is also awkward. He eventually fell into the snare of this very routine by pure chance. He’ll come out, shake himself off, and get busy commonplace. But there are a dime a dozen performances around the world like those produced by the honored Kaveen member. Including in the Army Theater itself. And Guzman here, frankly, fits perfectly into the context.
In his magnificent book Mimesis, the famous literary critic Erich Auerbach convincingly proves that Cervantes wrote not a heroic novel, but rather a parody. A novel about a man hopelessly trying to apply outdated canons to a radically changed reality. His Don Quixote, contrary to popular belief, was not ahead of his time. He fell hopelessly behind him. The text of the novel, as it turned out, turned out to be much broader and richer in meaning than the original plan, but still, Cervantes' Don Quixote is a much more comic figure than a tragic one. Over time this comic aspect was dropped and great novel turned for the reading public into a story about how an incorrigible idealist suffers in a world of incorrigible vulgarities, making life on earth more beautiful with his very existence. The musical Man of La Mancha, created in the 60s, is a typical product of this one-sided and rather superficial view of the masterpiece. So, a huge number of Russian theater directors and Yuli Gusman, who unexpectedly joined them, suffer from a kind of Don Quixote syndrome (not from the 60s musical, of course, but from the novel itself, seen through the eyes of Auerbach). Just like the Knight of the Sad Image, who naively accepts the ideals of the past as eternal ideals, they accept the aesthetic canons of many years ago as canons that are not subject to corrosion for all time. Just as a famous hero swears allegiance to the code of chivalry, they are ready to swear allegiance to routine. Worship her as a Beautiful Lady. Mistaking a basin for a helmet, and theater dust for the elixir of youth. And it's not specific feature productions by Guzman. This is a common disease (a kind of epidemic) that has engulfed a huge part of the Russian theater. It (the theater) resolutely and irrevocably does not want and does not know how to live in the present.
The fact that the most recent in the premiere of the Army Theater was Don Quixote by 90-year-old Zeldin is, in fact, completely unsurprising: after all, he does not hide the fact that he is a man from the past. He is only trying to prove that his voice, charm, energy, unlike all sorts of canons, are indeed not subject to the corrosion of time. They are for all times.
NG, December 17, 2004
Grigory Zaslavsky
Don Quixote, who covered the embrasure
At the Army Theater, Vladimir Mikhailovich Zeldin played and sang Don Quixote
One could say: there is nothing to cling to. In the performance, which Academic Theater Russian army Yuli Gusman put it, to use the language of military strategists, the main type of military action is retreat. But the audience that fills the hall - both the stalls and the balcony - is beside themselves with happiness: not believing their eyes and what they had heard, they came to see how 90-year-old Zeldin played. We went “to Zeldin”. And he did not disappoint!
It’s impossible to believe in this until you see it with your own eyes: be that as it may, there is a stereotype of what a patriarch who is about to turn 90 should be like on stage. Measured speech, a dry, senile voice, a young partner, just in case, protecting the old man next to him -teachers, everything is full of significance and meaning, adding greatness to every appearance on stage... There is nothing like this in Zeldin’s play, no grandeur, on the contrary - defiant childishness and a complete absence of what previously constituted “additional equipment” in the play of the great theatrical old men.
“I’m going, because someone has to go!.. Look ahead!.. I swear to dream all my life!..” - he sings the words of his “preacher” role from the musical written during his own youth - Dale Wasserman, John Darion and Mitch Lee (Russian lyrics by Yuri Aikhenvald).
It affects not only portrait likeness the present Zeldin with the famous images of the wandering hidalgo. The very pathos of his speeches does not seem to be borrowed from anyone, but rather spoken from the heart, which, perhaps, is somewhat at odds with the intention of the American authors of the musical, where Don Quixote seeks and finds adventures not only on his own head, but also on the heads of those to whom he sincerely wished goodness and mercy.
When he exclaims: “Who will answer what madness is when the whole world has gone crazy?!” Or when he says that he hopes to make our world a little kinder and more merciful, he addresses the audience too, and not just his comrades on stage. This is not just a game. And I must say: coming from an actor, this sermon does not look funny or absurd. And he is not at all afraid of being branded as a crazy idealist. What should he be afraid of?!
Some kind words one can also say this about Olga Vasilyeva, who plays Aldonza-Dulcinea. Almost everything else in the play is bypassed. Dmitry Osherov, invited from the Mossovet Theater to play Sancho Panza, is fussy and fussy, and, perhaps, the only undoubted success of director Yuli Gusman (for some unknown reason called the master of the musical) remains the appointment of the actor to the main role. It seems like a small thing: in the finale, against the backdrop of countless electric candles, the actors come onto the stage with live candles. This is not old traditional theatre, this is bad theatre.
During the intermission, Mikhail Efremov was sincerely perplexed: are there really no representatives of the Guinness Book of Records in the hall to capture the unprecedented?! It seems there wasn't.
Zeldin is not “tailored” like an old man. He undertakes to play Don Quixote and plays a non-dying old man (which would be both permissible and understandable), an old aristocrat, who either in reality, or in his visions and senile delirium, was a knight of the Sad Image, who lies and remembers. He plays Don Quixote as a man in full bloom, he sings, falls to one knee in front of a lady and instantly rises without assistance. And he sings better than everyone else in this performance. One could imagine that everyone else was deliberately playing giveaway if such a need ever revealed itself. Vladimir Mikhailovich Zeldin even today has almost no need for such a dishonest game: of course, we must pay tribute to the choreographer of the play Oleg Nikolaev, director of fights and fights in which Don Quixote-Zeldin seems to be a full participant, and at times the main bully. He carries a spear, fights, as they say, without fear or reproach, ready to go alone into battle with superior enemy forces...
It’s still possible here – and of course, it’s necessary! - to say that this role naturally continues Zeldin’s acting biography, and, as it were, sends greetings to the great past of the Army Theater, where they sang, danced, and made frivolous jokes, talked about nobility and were known as romantics, especially in difficult times Russian times, when real romantics were stacked in the foundations of the shock construction projects of socialism. Well, especially frivolous jokes had a special designation in the long alphabet of the famous 58th article of the Criminal Code.
But if the exploits of Don Quixote seem doubtful to us, the feat of Zeldin is undeniable
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Photo by ITAR-TASS |
Vremya Novostei, December 17, 2004
Alexander Sokolyansky
Celebration of the Old Actor
Vladimir Zeldin played Don Quixote
Over the past twenty years, neither the image nor the manners of Vladimir Zeldin have changed at all. He seemed frozen in a clear, emphatically polite old age without signs of decrepitness. Fate sometimes bestows the ability to stop the biological clock on old actors, especially those who were brilliant and easy-going from a young age. Those whose best roles They are firmly embedded in the history of the theater, but are remembered not as great, but as captivating.
It would be very interesting to understand the nature of "captivating actors", to describe their properties and their relationship with the public. Cheerful, dexterous, lively - a certain superficiality suits them. The public loves them passionately and cheerfully, but rather carefree than selflessly: captivating actors do not become masters of thoughts. And one more thing: fate can never satisfy their incredible acting appetite (they love to play and captivate more than anything else), but as compensation, they often endow them with creative longevity.
Probably the best of the “captivating” was the Moscow Art Theater artist Mark Prudkin, who at the age of twenty-eight marvelously played Shervinsky (“Days of the Turbins,” 1926), and at seventy-eight years old, Shabelsky (“Ivanov,” 1976); at ninety-five he composed the role of Firs in a very interesting way for himself. Vladimir Zeldin belongs to the same wonderful breed. About sixty years ago he played the unforgettable Aldemaro (“The Dance Teacher”, 1946) on the stage of the Soviet Army Theater, and just now, on the same stage, he played Don Quixote (and Cervantes to boot) in the musical “Man of La Mancha” . Perhaps this should be included in the Guinness Book of Records: in less than three months, the artist will turn ninety, and he plays the main role in a musical, and plays it well.
Man of La Mancha is Zeldin's choice. It is unexpected and precise, it is good because the eternal desire to play has not gone down the well-trodden rut. Since the age of sixty, all our folk artists have aimed at King Lear; Zeldin did not give in to temptation, and did the right thing: it was not his role. Just like Chekhov's Firs, Tolstoy's Akim, Beckett's Krapp, etc. In world drama there are many brilliantly written old people; almost all of them were not written for Zeldin.
Of course, the singing and dancing Don Quixote should remind one of “The Dancing Teacher” (the echo is obvious), but “Man of La Mancha” is not Zeldin’s bow to his past, but a statement of acting dignity in the present. The audience is ready to be joyfully amazed at the fact that the actor managed to maintain his posture, gesture, and voice - and is amazed. When Zeldin sings Mitch Lee’s hit song “It’s me, Don Quixote, the Man of La Mancha...”, the audience can’t believe its own ears: the actor hits the notes flawlessly and draws out open vowels in masculine rhymes. exactly that much, as much as required. Naturally, they shout “bravo” to him! - I'm joining.
Perhaps the most voiceless actors and actresses were deliberately selected for Zeldin’s pandan, but one way or another, of all the characters in the musical, only Don Quixote sings his arias; others are presented in recitative. It is possible that the roles are played by actors according to the principle “the worse, the better”: we, they say, will try our best to fake it, scream senselessly and wave our arms - and thereby emphasize the brilliance of the gray-haired patriarch. Perhaps the whole production as a whole... but it's time to get personal.
The work of director Yuli Gusman and artist Yuri Antizersky is not just bad, but hopelessly bad. The only worse thing is the work of choreographer Oleg Nikolaev, who composed a series of meaningless collective trampling and one women's dance, making you remember the immortal phrase: “Don’t move your lower bust!” Compared to this squalor, Antizersky’s inflatable decorations, sort of gingerbread houses (by the way, they inflate very reluctantly, as if they themselves understand what they look like), are not exactly a masterpiece, but something edible. It may be tasteless, it may be expired, but it’s almost edible. In general, of course, with such scenographic ideas it would be better to go to Uryupinsk.
Julius Gusman, unlike Antizersky and Nikolaev, is a well-known person and loved by many. He undertook to stage “Man of La Mancha” at the Army Theater, apparently out of friendship, and also remembering that once upon a time (80s or even 70s, Baku) he had already staged this musical. His work raises suspicions that Guzman, having become a Muscovite in 1988, stopped going to the theater. Apparently, he simply does not know that the production culture of the musical has changed a lot. Since the times of “Metro” and “Nord-Ost”, new requirements for the genre have arisen: singing actors now need vocal abilities, dancing extras- the ability to dance, the director - professional literacy and creativity. Guzman had nowhere to get the first one; It's a shame for the lack of a second one.
It would seem: the great artist, the arbiter of humor (by analogy with Petronius, who at the court of Emperor Nero was the “arbiter of elegance”) should have an aversion to crude cliches and falsifications. Not at all: Guzman’s directing consists of only them. His wit showed itself only once, when he invited Mossovet Dmitry Osherov to play the role of Sancho Panza: if Don Quixote is so unusually old, let Sancho be just as unusually young. This could have worked if Osherov had played according to his abilities, and not with the general atmosphere of boredom, laziness and approximateness. Did not work.
It is all the more important to understand who and how Vladimir Zeldin plays. His gestures are graceful, but very careful, slow - still almost ninety. Consonants are pronounced with varying degrees of confidence: the exclamation “Justice has triumphed!” makes it difficult for the actor with an abundance of whistling “s”, almost turning into “f”. But for this Don Quixote - yes, that’s how it should be. And it sounds no worse than light grazing or softening of vowels in the French manner. Zeldin's hero was born not in La Mancha, but in La Manche: The difference is worth understanding.
The grace and diligence of Zeldin's playing explains internal plot performance. In a simple world, stupid and frankly selfish, a man appears from forgotten past, a representative of a naturally extinct breed: weak, fragile, but still a hero of antiquity. He won't change anything anymore. However, he himself needs to live in the present exactly as he lived in the past - with honesty and grace. I would also like to have fun - but it’s unlikely to happen.
Broadway musical (1965) by American playwrights D. Wasserman and D. Derrion to the music of Mitch Lee "Man of La Mancha" based on the novel "Don Quixote" by Miguel Cervantes
Forget about art palaces. Theater "Santa Susana", new professional theater in Simi Valley, puts on "Man of La Mancha" in a tent - and does it so successfully that you almost begin to believe that this, and only this, is how it should be.
This tent is pitched in a parking lot that used to be a supermarket. The troupe planned to use the former store building, but the building inspector did not allow it. Therefore, a tent with 230 seats had to be erected.
Two parallels can be drawn between what the play is about and the experience of the theater itself. First, and most obviously, the Santa Susana Theater tries to realize its own "impossible dream" by fighting against obstacles just as Don Quixote did. The show must go on - and they are doing everything they can to make it happen.
This parallel would not be worth much if the performance were not so good. But this show is worth going on.
LANE DAVIS plays Cervantes with aristocratic equanimity and Quixote with aristocratic passion, marking the differences between the two characters with subtle gestures. His voice is worthy of all praise. ~ Los Angeles Times: "'Man of La Mancha' in tent turns out to be a possible dream," 06/22/1989
This revival brings back the three stunning stars of the 1989 version in fine form. Lane Davis, also artistic director troupe, shows that Cervantes was forced to come to terms, but Quixote captivates with his naivety. In Eileen Barnett, both the simpleton Aldonsa and the angel Dulcinea are visible. Jerry Winsett is Sancho's standard.
If you ignore some of the blurriness of the verses, the rest of the actors are also good. The play was directed by Bruce French. The amplified voice of the Carol Weiss Quintet playing offstage does not always match the events or actions of the characters. But mostly this performance - and this theater - is a long-awaited phenomenon on local soil. ~ Los Angeles Times, 09.19.1994
WHAT THEY HAD TO OVERCOME TO DO THIS:
Daily News of Los Angeles 05/23/1989
Posted by Stephanie Stassel
“Simi Valley actors do not give in to difficulties”
The cast and staff of the Santa Susana Theater never thought of their production of Man of La Mancha as an “impossible dream,” but it turns out to be an unreal nightmare. The troupe had planned to perform the musical starting June 9 in a vacant building at the corner of Los Angeles Avenue/Stearns Street until they were informed that safety regulations would not allow it. Therefore, it was decided to put up a circus tent in the parking lot and perform the performance there. The tent was pitched on Saturday.
“The play ends with the song “The Impossible Dream,” says producer Holly Swann (LDrus note: according to other sources, Swanner is the wife of Lane Davis, the mother of his children). “That’s what this play is about, and that’s what we’re facing.”
The actors and staff worked 15 hours a day to produce the musical about the life of Don Quixote. Now they will have to build a stage, stairs, benches for 232 people and run wires from the empty building to the tent. In addition, they are already 4 weeks behind schedule.
The inside of the building had already been cleaned out and a stage built when officials said that in order for the play to be performed there, permanent walls would need to be installed there, restrooms added, wiring replaced and perhaps another exit added as well. The building previously housed a roller skating rink and hosted dating nights, but without changes, it cannot be used as a theater, according to Brian Gaebler, an aide with the city. “The building was not designed to hold that many people,” Gaebler said. “They would have to install screens, build load-bearing walls inside and bring everything up to building code.” The city administration will organize a meeting for those who have questions about this (…).
Since Simi Valley does not have a permanent theater, the Simi Valley Cultural Association is preserving the building, donated to it by Dorkin Properties. The troupe's two previous performances were at Moorpark Primary School and College. Swann claims that new site will cost the theater 10 thousand dollars more than the original estimate. “We invest our own money,” says Swann. “We also accept in-kind assistance.”
David Ralphie, the musical's director, says the enthusiasm and determination of the cast is remarkable. “We could have pulled out of the production at any time and no one could have blamed us, but the company refused,” says Ralphie.
Man of La Mancha, starring Lane DAVIS and Eileen Barnett, will run from June 9 to July 2 (...).
9.06.1989
Los Angeles Times (Valley edition)
Author: David Wharton.
“It’s a circus: The theater troupe had to move out of the market into a tent”
The staff at the Santa Susana Theater thought they had found a home when a developer approached them about taking over an abandoned supermarket in Simi Valley in March. But five weeks ago, as the troupe was busy converting the store into a theater, a building inspector showed up—with good news and bad. The good news was that the troupe was allowed to perform the play in this building. The bad news is that due to fire safety regulations, many people could not be invited to the performance, and none of them would be allowed to even sit down.
“They just dropped a bomb on us,” said Victoria Morris, one of the founders of the Simi Valley theater. “Here it is, this 30,000-square-foot building, but we can’t use it.”
The show, of course, must go on. Man of La Mancha premieres today in a tent in the parking lot. The premiere performance is performed a week later than promised, because members of the troupe had to fight for temporary permission from the administration, rent a tent for 7,500 dollars and move the seats and decorations from the building to the parking lot. “It really was grueling,” Morris admits. “It’s just ridiculous.” The owner of the building assured Morris several months ago that the building met all the requirements. It's true: only these are requirements for a store, not for a theater.
"There's a difference between a grocery store and a theater," said Jay Corey, city manager. “The fire regulations are stricter for theaters and other gathering places.”
It was planned to install about 300 seats in the supermarket. The tent in which the administration finally allowed the play to be played only accommodates 230. The supermarket had a luxurious lobby and toilets, but the tent does not.
So, "Santa Susana" again finds herself in unfavorable conditions. So far this season the theater has had to play "A Christmas Carol" in the building primary school and Of Mice and Men at Moorpark College. However, the troupe consists of about a dozen experienced theater and film actors. She's giving Simi Valley a taste of real theater. Most of the troupe's actors live in a residential suburb and would simply like to work close to home. (...)
“It was noted that both writers died on St. George in 1616, “Concluding an alliance to destroy the dragon of false appearances” as Bell writes intricately, but incorrectly. Without thinking about exterminating the dragon, both Cervantes and Shakespeare, each in his own way, walked this cute beast on a leash so that time would preserve for us its sad look and iridescent scales. (By the way, although the day of death of both is considered April 23 my birthday, Cervantes and Shakespeare died on different calendars and there is a ten-day gap between the two dates)"
Nabokov "Lectures on Don Quixote".
“The wildest madness is to see life as it is, and not as it should be.”
Don Quixote "Man of La Mancha".
I wake up at 4.44, there is a bright orange spot in the window street lamp. It’s not that it’s dark May is upon us but it adds light. It shines so much that you don’t immediately notice the dim circle of the moon much lower. Which, as it were, does not shine, is lost in the bright neighborhood. But it's more interesting to look at. How strange, I think, What is this lantern in comparison with the Moon? Zilch. And you look, wanting to see reality as it is, and you will be firmly convinced: this is the true source of light on the night planet.
Life led and led along circuitous paths to Cervantes's great work. A friend a year older in the camp amazed me with the beauty of foreign words: “Do you know the full name of the author of Don Quixote? Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. I specially learned it, to spite our Russian girl, she thinks I’m stupid.” On the screensaver of the educational program of the second channel (there were three in total in my childhood), in Spanish there is an awkward long knight and a small plump squire. Song “At the tournament, at the feast and at the hunt, rumors circulate about the brave Don Quixote.” But every attempt to read ended in such a crushing attack of unbearable boredom that the book was closed even without the consoling thought “Until better times” forever.
Because the only way getting to know the great novel of the great Spaniard is mediated for me. Through a film adaptation, Nabokov’s “Lectures”, and even through a musical. Because the film “Man of La Mancha” is a variation on the theme of the Broadway musical. And the relationship to the original source is approximately the same as that of a retelling of a film based on a book to the novel itself. Or RPG books to the idea that inspired the game developers. Not my idea, a friend mentioned it in passing, but very accurate. But I love musicals; in good ones there are always two or three wonderful melodies that can “make” the day. And this one will feature Peter O'Toole and Sophia Loren. What else could a poor girl dream of?
I turn it on and start watching; the effect is like a novel - a crushing attack of unbearable boredom drives you to sleep. I’m shaking myself, I didn’t miss much (the plot is known, I’ve read a bit of Nabokov). And here it is Sophie, with this fierce femininity of hers, you can’t take your eyes off. And O'Toole no, no, he's not good here, but still. And the music, very pleasant Littie Bird just touches the soul. And an interesting interpretation is visible. Not usual for this plot: “the happiness of the whole world is not worth one tear on the cheek of an innocent child” and not “the ashes of Klaas beat in my chest.” And not even quite “darkness” low truths The deception that elevates us is dearer to us.”
No, this is different: the world is full of injustice, sorrow and sorrow. But who and when was made happier by the recognition of this fact? Who was consoled and when? You can call a loser a loser: poor girl, surviving as best she can as a slut; a fool who fights injustice, a madman. And what? Never mind. Only the general abomination is even more vile. Even more hopeless. Or you can see in her a Beautiful Lady, in him a Knight in Shining Armor, and for a moment make both of them those whom you saw in them. Let it not be for long, let it seem that the darkness has closed even more tightly after this clearing. It only seems so. They saw what they could be. “Love not what you are, but what you want and can be.”
Was it worth watching? I think yes. By some inspiration, I ask Yandex about the theater performance of the same name. Mayakovsky, who was exactly what was recommended, but could not find it. There are excerpts. Lazarev, Doronina, Leonov. How good they are. Aldonsa Doronina is a cut above, may Sophie forgive me. It's a pity that the whole performance is not available. And the lantern outside my window went out at five in the morning, as if he had never been there. The moon remains. Well, what about reality as it is?
