Due to Kathleen’s impending delivery date, we knew if we wanted to see the revival of “Man of La Mancha” on Broadway, we’d need to go sooner rather than later. So it was that we were there in the first performance of the first premiere.
Well, it’s certainly in a *lot* better shape than the other premiere we recently saw (“Dance of the Vampires.”) But hëll, look at the material. And this time out, they didn’t screw with it the way they did at the Goodspeed Opera House a year or two ago–cutting songs (“What Does He Want of Me?”, “The Gypsy Dance”), or deciding to have Quixote speaking in a Castillian accent (transforming “Dulcinea” into “Dulthinea,” giving it a distinctly Daffy Duck sound.)
Solid to excellent casting. Brian Stokes Mitchell as Quixote doesn’t quite capture the air of madness in the old man, and he motors through Cervante’s pivitol speech about having seen life without milking the world-weariness and pain Cervantes has experienced, but you can’t argue with the man’s pipes. His “Impossible Dream” becomes a showstopper. Ernie Sabella wrings every last laugh out of Sancho (although Ariel looked up at me loyally at the end of the show and said, “You were a better Sancho, daddy.”) Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio has a far more comprehensive theatrical track record than I’d realized, and I think she has the potential to be one of the great Aldonzas. She not quite there yet, though. She conveys some nice sneering contempt every now and then, but the broken spirit and burning bitterness of the tavern šlûŧ isn’t fully in evidence. And you really need that to make her transformation at the end more striking. On the upside, she’s a lot better than Sheena Easton or (oy) Sophia Loren.
And hey, comics fans. The production was directed by Jonathan Kent.
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