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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, November 19, 2003

Don Quixote and company create a night in shining ardor

By Joseph T. Rozmiarek
Advertiser Drama Critic

 •  'Man of La Mancha'

7:30 p.m. Friday, Saturday, and Nov. 28-29

Richardson Theatre, Fort Shafter

$17 and $14 adults; $10 and $8 children 438-4480 or 438-5230

All systems are go for "Man of La Mancha" at Army Community Theatre.

A lighting board failure on Thursday's opening night caused the show to go on with only follow spots, but "Man of La Mancha" found its legs on Friday with a musically solid production that satisfies the ear and the heart. It's a real contender, even after a hard-to-beat season-opening production of "Gypsy."

The show has no traditional choreography, only one set, and — with the dimmers working — seems etched out of shadows by lighting designer John Parkinson. It's a somber stage picture, set in a dungeon where playwright and poet Miguel de Cervantes awaits his turn before the Spanish Inquisition.

Cervantes diverts his ravenous fellow prisoners by enacting the story of his unfinished novel "Don Quixote." As he reaches the climax of this play within a play, Cervantes draws on Quixote's idealism to gain strength to face his judges.

It's a gritty, challenging musical, and while director John Mount pulls back a bit from the stage violence that electrified the original Broadway production, he's selected a cast that measures up to the musical demands.

All the singers are good and, when musical director Lina Jeong Doo has them singing parts embellished by grace notes in the upper octaves and supports them with an excellent orchestra, the sound is positively thrilling.

Bryan Bender takes the title role as Cervantes/Quixote and makes the character large and vital, with a quirky penchant for imagining himself in an era of romance and chivalry. By underplaying Quixote's delusions and physical frailty, he becomes less vulnerable and more comic. The approach helps balance the play's abundant darkness, but it also dulls the psychological edge on which the character is so tenuously balanced.

Bender does justice to the show's signature piece "The Impossible Dream" and also masters "Dulcinea," the song by which Quixote's imagination transforms kitchen slut Aldonza into a virginal lady.

Mary Chesnut Hicks enters the action with exciting high notes and a defensive swagger, hammering out the role of Aldonza like a woman shaped by hard knocks. She doesn't take it to the level of animal snarl, but we get the point that her emotional armor has a chink in it that Quixote has pierced.

There are excellent voices in the supporting roles. Scott Moura is delightful as Quixote's servant Sancho. John Hunt is the amoral governor of the dungeon, Lorna Mount is the housekeeper, Megan Mount is the niece and Julius Ahn is the grasping potential in-law. Gordon Ing is the Padre and Andrew Valentine is the Barber.

To top off the vocal feast, Christopher Howard and Marvin Miyoshi appear as a pair of charming horses.

Directors Mount and Doo get wonderful ensemble work from this cast and orchestra, and Tom Giza designs a chillingly creaky drawbridge.

You have only two more weekends to see it for yourself.