On February 22, 2022, the energy of the character “Don Quixote” freely inspired by the novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, captures the attention of the audience of the “Turi Ferro” theater in Carlentini.
The adaptation is by Francesco Niccolini, the dramaturgy by Roberto Aldorasi, AlessioBoni, Marcello Prayer and Francesco Niccolini.
Magnificent actors such as AlessioBoni in the role of Don Quixote, Serra Yilmaz in the role of Sancho Panza, and again Marcello Prayer, Francesco Meoni, Pietro Faiella, Liliana Massari, Elena Nico and the buzzing BiagioIacovelli, surround the errant knight.
The sets are by Massimo Troncanetti, the costumes by Francesco Esposito, the lights by DavideScognamiglio and the music by Francesco Forni. Directed by Roberto Aldorasi, AlessioBoni and Marcello Prayer.
In Castillala Mancha, a Spanish town, lived a gentleman who was over fifty years old, who loved to read tales of chivalry to the point of thinking they were true.
One day he goes mad and decides to become a knight, chooses old objects that could serve as armor, chooses an assistant, Sancho Panza simple and crude, and like all knights he chooses a princess to love, Dulcinea del Toboso, a noblewoman who lived nearby from his home.
During his travels, he meets many characters and comes to fight against windmills, which in his madness are giants and monsters. Eventually Don Quixote dies after regaining his intelligence.In reality, what does Cervantes want to represent with his extraordinary character of Don Quixote? Probably Don Quixote, or rather Alonso Quijada, is the common man who lives his flat life, imprisoned in a reality devoid of stimuli, drowned by the flow of ignorance of the many and annihilated by the lack of great ethical values. So … he decides to escape from the reality that is close to him and begins his chivalrous journey. To justify his departure and make sure that no one can hold him back, he runs away in the guise of a madman.
Sure… because when a man tries to change his stagnant reality and tries to chase his dreams, he is immediately considered weird, out of his mind, a fool.
It is not possible that a man cannot try to improve himself, fight with all his strength and potential, to allow himself the right to be happier along the path of his only life.
The mad knight shows the viewer the basic problem of existence, that is the disappointment that man experiences within the reality that surrounds him which not only obscures the fantasy and the imagination,but cancels the possibility of the realization of a life project with which man can identify himself.
It will be precisely those subjects who have the courage to change their lives in an unconventional way, who will be defined as “crazy”.
Here Don Quixote immerses himself in his new reality of madness to live a life of strong emotions, adventures and successes, all in defense of the weakest against any injustice. Only in this way, thanks to his valiant deeds, he will be able to be useful to others, putting aside for a while his aseptic, apathetic and sad existence, within which the low consideration of the community has diminished him as an individual and as a man. . To be happy, Don Quixote builds an experience within another experience, a real life superimposed on a fantastic life.
Two parallel lives, one real and one fictitious, like the eternal Hamletic question “To be or not to be”, the eternal marriage between dream or reality.This comparison leads us directly to a comparison with “La vidaes sue֘no” by Calderón de la Barca, where the illusion of having lived a perfect life between dream and reality, leads to the final revelation of a fictitious life made up of lies and self-denial.
The same will happen to Orlando Furioso, also an errant knight of an epic poem, in the throes of his madness out of love for Angelica, with great disappointment he will discover that the woman did not love him. Same ending for Don Quixote, he too experiences a great disappointment when, recovering his healthy mind, he realizes that he no longer has that magnificent role of a valiant knight.
Who will use a good dose of healthy and comic truthfulness in Don Quixote’s adventures, is his faithful squire Sancho Panza who, despite ignorant and crude, emblem of materialism and real existence, represents reality by highlighting that balance between dreams and reality, necessary for the existence of man to be able to survive the stagnant daily and repetitive reality.
Don Quixote gives great advice to the spectator, to continue dreaming, because dreams are the nymph of existence, the energy of our mind, the beat of our heart, the energy of our body, and as he says Miguel de Unamuno: “… and if life is a dream, let me dream forever!”
