Quixotic quest

SOAP LAKE - Putting on "Man of La Mancha" in Masquers Theater wasn't an impossible dream for director Randy Brooks.

Brooks first saw the play performed by its original cast in 1967 and later he got to perform in the play in Bozeman, Mont., but he had always wanted to direct it.

"It's one of the best musicals ever done, and it's a great story, got great music," he said. "We have the talent in the Basin to do this show, and do a super job on it."

The play begins Friday at the Soap Lake theater, located at 322 Main Ave. E.

"Man of La Mancha," a book by Dale Wasserman, music by Mitch Leigh and lyrics by Joe Darion, is the story of Don Miguel de Cervantes, played by Daren Vernon, the author of the classic novel "Don Quixote."

"Interesting fellow," Brooks said of Cervantes, who originally wrote the book in two segments as a comedy.

Cervantes first achieved notoriety with the first section, but money started coming in after the second.

"He, unfortunately, died about six months after the second part came out, so he never really got any of the monetary back but it made him world-famous," Brooks said. "He was a contemporary of Shakespeare … A lot of what the play speaks to are things Cervantes, as a man, actually went through."

The author was an actor, a tax collector, a soldier and he was captured and worked as a slave for five years before being freed.

"A lot of the things that go into the story of 'Don Quixote' actually happened to Cervantes, including being tossed into prison five or six times for various reasons," Brooks said. "It was in prison his last time he actually started putting down some ideas about this knight of his."

"La Mancha" is a play within a play, with Cervantes thrown into prison during the Spanish Inquisition. Each prisoner gets tried by the other prisoners, who have their own hierarchy.

"To save his bacon and his servant's tail, he admits guilt but then says, 'OK, now you have to listen to my reasons for this,'" Brooks said. "They go, 'OK, that's fine,' and he says, 'Let me do it as a story,' and then, wonderful."

The set was designed by cast member Charlotte Blanchard, a former engineer, and actually put together by Eric Van Woert, his father and a friend of his father.

Blanchard said she read the script several times and consulted with Brooks.

"What we were trying to portray is that this was down deep, subterranean, as dark, foreboding and overwhelming as possible with the set design," Blanchard said. "There's not one single cheery thing about (the set)."

Blanchard plays a flamenco dancer and a gypsy dancer in the play.

"Everyone's pulled together and has worked very hard to make it a very good show," she said. "It's a very exciting play. It isn't light-hearted, it has the intensity. At the very end, it's emotionally uplifting. The whole play in itself is something, it gives you goosebumps when it's done."

"It's probably the biggest thing we've ever undertaken at Masquers right now," Van Woert said of the set. "The stage itself is pretty simple, just five doorways in and out, but the actual drawbridge used in here took a little bit more engineering, a little bit more design and also a lot more wood than people realize."

Van Woert also plays the Duke in the play.

"You've got a lot of people that just break their backs," Brooks said. "People just give of their time. The musicians, some of these people could be out making $200 a night playing, and where are they for free? They're sitting here for five weekends in a row, playing for nothing."

For Brooks, professionalism is a state of mind.

"We've got a tremendous amount of people here at Masquers who really care about putting on community theater," Brooks said. "The audience out there still deserves absolutely the best possible performance we can give them, they deserve a professional performance. This is very personal. They give you two and a half hours of their life they will never have again."

Brooks said the play is open to all audiences.

The play opens Friday and runs Saturday, Oct. 26, Oct. 27, Nov. 2, Nov. 3, Nov. 9, Nov. 10, Nov. 16 and Nov. 17 at 8 p.m., and Oct. 28, Nov. 4 and Nov. 11 at 3 p.m.

For more information or to purchase tickets, call 509-246-2611.