There was a time when "Man of La Mancha" was cool. Like "Come From Away" cool, if not exactly "Hamilton" cool. Opening as a Broadway show, but in a minimalist-chic temporary structure in Greenwich Village, with little fanfare, few recognizable names attached, and a box-office advance that probably couldn't keep "Aladdin" alive for a weekend, good reviews led growing crowds to Washington Square. Perhaps it started with a move uptown to a standard-issue Broadway house, and maybe the ubiquity of songwriters Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion's "The Impossible Dream" was a contributing factor, but "Man of La Mancha" went from cool to square.
Custom Made Theatre has given the 1965 musical a stripped-down treatment that lets some of the cool back in. There's little room for bombast to crowd the story, which here becomes an intimate tale as if told with a close-up lens. Having some actors do double duty as musicians doesn't always pay off harmonically; it can't be easy to arrange the score for flute, guitar, blow organ, viola, and euphonium.
In his script, Dale Wasserman interweaves the stories of 17th-century Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes and his legendary character Don Quixote, actually taking more liberties with the historical figure than the fictional one. But the literary license taken is dramatically savvy, creating a show within the show that gainfully employs the audience's imagination in a way that the literal-minded movie version so abjectly failed to do.
The setting is a common room for common criminals in a prison where Cervantes is being held until his appearance before the Spanish Inquisition. (Cervantes did do jail time, but for allegedly cooking the books as a tax collector.) Arriving with a genteel demeanor, a personal manservant, and a trunk filled with theatrical glad rags, he is an easy target for the restless inmates. He doesn't mind the verbal abuse or the pillaging of his belongings, at least not until the alpha inmate comes across a hefty manuscript. To save his precious work, Cervantes offers to put on a show, casting his fellow prisoners in various roles, while saving the part of Don Quixote for himself.
Edward Hightower, in the dual roles of Cervantes and Quixote, provides a performance with the sublime elegance of someone who knows how to work a crowd - whether it be a rowdy crush of prisoners or a focused band of theatergoers. His Cervantes has a veneer of self-effacing confidence that only minimally cracks each time another prisoner is called to face the Inquisition. As the deluded country squire who imagines himself a dauntless knight, Hightower gently pulls us into a world where he is certain that virtue will triumph at last. While he does not possess a booming singing voice, he knows how to expressively work it.
Hightower's performance maintains a centering aura in what can become a muddle around him in director Brian Katz's otherwise heartfelt production. Not all the supporting roles are distinctly drawn, with two notable exceptions. Dave Leon is delightful as Sancho Panza, Don Quixote's loyal servant, and Anthony Aranda is a commanding presence as the self-appointed governor of his fellow inmates, and as the soft-hearted innkeeper who gives Don Quixote refuge. Rachael Richman doesn't fare as well as Aldonza, a scullery maid whom Don Quixote imagines as the beatific Dulcinea. Richman can't come close to convincing us that she was "born on a dung heap to die on a dung heap, a strumpet men use and forget."
Strong lyrics, but a footnote to the musical's history has poet W.H. Auden as the original lyricist of the musical. They were deemed too overtly satiric and biting, and worse, he went on the attack against bourgeois audiences who would help the show run for 2,328 performances.
"Man of La Mancha" will run at Custom Made Theatre through Feb. 17. Tickets are $30-$49, available at custommade.org.
Edward Hightower plays the dual roles of Miguel de Cervantes and Don Quixote in Custom Made Theatre's reimagining of "Man of La Mancha." Photo: Jay Yamada