Dawn, Quixote
Conceived and Directed by Blake Montgomery
The Building Stage, 412 N. Carpenter (map)
thru April 27 | tickets: $15-$25 | more info
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Building Stage says farewell with bittersweet, contagious enthusiasm
The Building Stage presents
Dawn, Quixote
Review by Catey Sullivan
At the core of Dawn, Quixote is a solid, 15-minute comic sketch. At 90 minutes, it often feels repetitive and a bit on the self-amused/self-indulgent side. As the swan song for the Building Stage – a funky, flexible, slightly-off-the-beaten-track venue that’s been home to some provocative and gorgeous productions over the past eight years –the show is an amiable but relatively weak note to go out on. Still, only a curdled curmudgeon would fail to see the appeal of Blake Montgomery’s antic take on Miguel de Cervantes’ 17th century saga. At the risk of being overly analytical, we’ll argue that Don Quixote, the ever-stalwart chaser of impossible dreams, provides an unmistakable parallel with the lot of any given artistic director in the world of way-off-Loop theaterland.
As The Building Stage’s Artistic Director, Montgomery has spent the better part of a decade cultivating and nurturing his theater and the artists who graced it, a challenge often as surely quixotic as tilting at windmills. There’s a direct line between Quixote’s unassailable belief in his own quest and that of any artist facing down the seemingly impossible odds of getting that art produced and seen. This undercurrent of subtext gives the irreverent Dawn, Quixote a weight it wouldn’t otherwise have. Featuring a cast wholly committed to the zaniness of the material, it plays out as a tribute to those for whom creativity is as important (or more so) as the bottom line.
Developed and performed by a cast of six – Gabriel Franken, Michael Hamilton, Chelsea Keenan, Kate Suffern, Anne Walaszek and Nathan Wonder – Dawn, Quixote is playful in the extreme as it riffs on the epic tragi-comedy of its source material. There are six Quixotes here, all with identical wigs, doublets and pantaloons. They gambol across the stage with the frolicsome joy of delighted children, infusing the story with a genuine wonder that’s quite appealing. The trouble is that the whimsy soon teeters into the land of affectation; Dawn, Quixote is at times a shade too self-aware and impressed with its own meta-theatrical silliness. A little bit of gamboling Quixotes goes a long way – the feeling of exuberant goofiness occasionally smacks more of artifice than of art.
The story will be recognizable to anyone even vaguely familiar with the Quixotic quests set forth by Cervantes. The Quixotes careen into (off-stage) windmills, insisting they are fearsome dragons to be slain, pursue the kitchen wench/virginal maiden Dulcinea and bond with the loyal, if somewhat doltish sidekick Sancho. They also play ukuleles (the musical interludes, penned by composer Pamela Maurer, are truly lovely in a vaguely melancholic sort of way as befits the Knight of the Woeful Countenance) and pretend to be cowboys. As to the latter: Dawn, Quixote is as much informed by the spaghetti western aesthetic as it is by Cervantes. There are musical snippets from vintage Eastwood films, gun-play straight out of the OK Corral and small herds of (imaginary) horses .
To a one, the cast throws itself into the story with a contagious enthusiasm, at once goading the audience to revel in the hijinks and imparting the ultimately bittersweet story of impossible dreams. That bittersweetness is compounded by Montgomery’s set design, a floor-to-ceiling array of props, set pieces and other invaluable bits of flotsam and jetsam from productions past. It’s all for sale, and provides a strong, silent testimony of the many adventures that have played out at the Building Stage.
Rating: ★★★
Dawn, Quixote continues through April 27th at The Building Stage, 412 N. Carpenter (map), with performances Thursdays-Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays 4pm. Tickets are $15-$25, and are available by phone (312.491.1369) or online through BrownPaperTickets.com (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at BuildingStage.com. (Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission)
Photos by Blake Montgomery
artists
cast
Gabriel Franken, Michael Hamilton, Chelsea Keenan, Kate Suffern, Anne Walaszek, Nathan Wonder
behind the scenes
Blake Montgomery (director, scenic design, photos), Pamela Maurer (original music),
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