Northwestern’s Almost Too Timely LaMancha

In our current President’s first term when U.S. government officers were putting kids in cages at Immigration Centers, a Northwestern University Theater senior saw the terrifying connection between the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition and US detention centers.  Gaby Godinez’s student presentation of Man of La Mancha was unable to occur due to Covid, but her father Henry Godinez, who serves as Chair of the Northwestern Theatre Department, borrowed her concept and has produced a gorgeously large and inspiring and striking version of this play within a play with songs we all want to sing. It is a bold show in the face of the current administration's freezing NU’s federal research grants, and is a fitting artistic protest that encourages all of us to dream impossible dreams in the face of state sponsored violence. Setting the play within an abandoned Walmart with pallets and sleeping bags pressed into service for a detention center roots the show in the present. 

The plot of this musical is that tax collector Cervantes is thrown into prison with his manservant and is set to deal with the Inquisition Tribunal.  The other prisoners want to take his belongings but the leader allows him to plead his case: Cervantes decides to act out a play to serve as his defense.  He transforms into Don Quixote de La Mancha, an old knight who wants to bring back the age of Chivalry.  He sets out on adventures, mistakes a windmill for a monster and a run down inn for a castle. Cervantes presses his fellow prisoners into joining him in acting out the narrative of an old man pursuing his impossible dreams. This elder has some humorous delusions, one of which is mistaking a shaving basin for a rare golden helmet.  He alienates some of the more unsavory customers at the inn and they take their anger out on Aldonza, the bar maid.  The play must end when Cervantes is called into judicial proceedings. HIs example has transformed the lives of all he encountered and the entire cast sings the anthem To Dream the Impossible Dream which left nary a dry eye in the house. 

As with all Northwestern casts, this ensemble is outstanding. Northwestern students are the best of the best and many go on to important careers, so it's always a treat to see these young actors as they are just getting started.   Estaban Ortiz-Villacorta is a young but well cast Quixote who gives the role weight and dignity. Nathan Hiykel’s Sancho practically steals the show as a loveable bear of a Sancho.

For contemporary audiences the original 1965 book might be bumpy: todays social media saturated audiences seem to struggle with plays within plays which complicate plots. Most difficult is the inherent misogyny of Aldonza’s plotline with the incessant harassment and an onstage rape feels sensationalized: I would hope we are well aware of the hopelessness of her plight and understand that sexual assault is how power terrorizes women all over the world. It was heartening to see Cristin Carole as intimacy director on this production, and in interviews Godinez has noted that sexual assault is a documented feature of ICE centers. Coco González’s Aldonza is one empowered spitfire who carried the weight of this role to solid ground.  I find many operas and musicals look very different through the eyes of this time in our culture. As an educational venture it is perhaps well to look deeply into the times that created this musical and how women’s roles have or have not changed. 

To sum up: this is a marvelous must see production but you have only one more week to see it: college productions are short runs. Man of LaMancha is playing this week Thursday through Sunday May 4th, 2025 at the Ethel M Barber Theater at 30 Arts Circle Drive on the Northwestern campus in Evanston Illinois. For tickets and information go to https://wirtz.northwestern.edu/man-of-la-mancha/

Photo by Justin Barber

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