Don Quijote

"Freedom, Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts..."

A play by Jakob Nolte after Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

A production by Neues Globe Theater

The story of Don Quijote and Sancho Panza becomes a showcase for two actors who wear themselves out against the world and each other until they have nothing left. From this sprawling prose epic, a piece of pure theatre emerges - one that goes to the heart of what theatre actually is: using language, body, and stage to conjure an illusion of reality.

Don Quijote is a passionate reader of old-fashioned chivalric romances who finds it increasingly hard to tell fiction from fact. He suddenly believes himself to be a proud knight, bound to face one adventure after another in honour of his beloved lady Dulcinea del Toboso. He cobbles together a suit of armour, mounts his rickety horse Rocinante, and lives out his dream of holy knighthood - fighting powerful sorcerers and fearsome giants. Or are they just windmills? Riding faithfully at his side is his squire Sancho Panza, promised an island and the title of governor, who keeps trying to save his master from the worst of his misadventures. Most episodes end with Don Quijote getting a thorough beating and having to be patched up by Sancho as the not-so-glorious "Knight of the Sorrowful Figure".

In the second part, Don Quijote has himself become a literary celebrity - as has the "secret protagonist" Sancho Panza. Together they set out one last time in pursuit of glorious deeds, until Don Quijote loses a final battle against his own reflection and admits to himself the futility of everything he has done.