“Man of La Mancha”

***** Today was a delicious day for me. First of all I was invited to see Henry Godinez’s “Man of La Mancha” at Northwestern University’s  Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts. For your information, this was the adaptation of Wasserman’s classic that Henry’s daughter Gaby was preparing during the Covid period. At that time it was shelved and now it finally has a stage and what a marvelous rebirth of a powerful story, with some changes that will bring it closer to events of 2025. For those familiar with the play, it takes place during the Spanish Inquisition and the entire story is in the “waiting area”, where each of the people awaiting trial or death ends up becoming a part of the defense of one Cervantes/Don Quixote ( a brilliant performance by Esteban Ortiz Villacorta).

This version takes place in an empty K-Mart ( or similar big box store) near the Texas/Mexico border, and all of our holdees are awaiting deportation to Mexico or their homeland. Of course, our hero has his aide/sidekick Sancho ( played to perfection by Nathan Hiykel) and he selects a young lady, Aldonza (Coco Gonzalez has the perfect vocal range) to be his “Dulcinea”. The music (Mitch Leigh) and lyrics ( Joe Darion) bring that song as well as “To Dream The Impossible Dream”, “I Really Like Him”,  “Little Bird, Little Bird”, “Knight of the Woeful Countenance” and of course “Man of La Mancha”. The musical numbers in this show are designed to move the plot along and while there are a few standout numbers, there are very few major production numbers.

The set (A Inn Doo) is powerful, with bunk beds lining the walls, a garage door ( that will open to a loading dock/with truck filled with Mexicans late in the play), and countless back room items one would find in a vacant store. These become the props as well. Josie Everett’s costumes are top-notch. Everything that comes out of Cervante’s trunk takes us back to a different time and each costume is perfect. While there is not a lot of choreography, Tallulah Nouss has done some clever things with the rape sequence where Aldonza leaves her body as the men have at her. The lighting (Sierra Walker) and sound (Forrest Gregor) are perfect and the  orchestra ( offstage) under the direction of Andra Velis Simon ( who is also the keyborad player and musical director) superb. Welcome back Andra!

This production cannot work without a powerful ensemble. These students show why so many of Northwestern’s graduates end up performing on stages all over the Chicago area ( as well as other parts of the country). They are solid and can do everything! Congratulations to :Alexa Nunez Magana, Theo Gyra, Grace Morley ( a great job as Innkeeper/Governor), Yehuda Zilberstein, Oscar Yum, Rowan Sharma, Pedro Rodriguez, Tiger Lee, Patrick Howard, Anah Shaikh, Elebetel Negusse, Veronica Bazan Garubbo, Anne-Sophie Lacombe Garcia, Mackenzie Kirkwood, Nicholas Portella, Clarisa Gomez Rodriguez and Sophia Bogdanovitch. Congratulations on a marvelous production of Dale Wasserman’s classic “Man of La Mancha) . You can be proud of what you brought to the stage and I know that your director and his daughter are feeling the positivity that you brought to this classic.

“Man of La Mancha” will continue at Northwestern University thru  May 4th    with performances as follows:

Thursdays   7:30 p.m.

Fridays        7:30 p.m.

Saturdays   2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Sundays      2:00 p.m.

The Ethel M. Barber Theater is located at 30 Arts Circle Drive in Evanston

For tickets: call 847-491-7282 or

visit  ci.ovationtix.com/1771/production/www,wirtz.northwestern.edu

They do offer free parking and it is quite convenient.

To see what others are saying ( if they opted to go) visit www.theatreinchicago.com, go to Review Round-Up and click at “Man of La Mancha”.