Don Quijote (UA)

DON QUIJOTE (UA)
A play with music and shadows after Miguel de Cervantes

With Arwid Klaws, Bernd Tauber, Hugo Ziegler and a child
Shadow theatre: Robert Buschbacher, Anne Brüssau
Music: Aitor Reynders
Adaptation and direction: Jan Jedenak
Composition: Marijn Simons
Co-direction and dramaturgy: Tonio Kleinknecht
Set and costume design: Stephanie Krey, Jan Jedenak
Shadow figure construction and development: Robert Buschbacher
Dramaturgy: Tina Brüggemann

Michael has lost his grip on the present: in his inner world he is Don Quijote of La Mancha, his son Sanjo is Sancho Panza, and the carer is Dona Belisa. Without knowing it, he is spending the last days of his life in a care home for people with dementia. When Sanjo and the carer begin to play along, reality and fiction become impossible to tell apart.

Within the sober routines of care, comic encounters emerge - alongside poetic images of windmills, heroic battles and nocturnal visions. The production weaves motifs from Cervantes' novel together with biographical fragments from the old man's life. Shadow play, puppets and live music on electric guitar and loop station make visible what is happening inside the protagonist.

Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) conceived his Don Quijote after a turbulent life as a soldier, a captive of pirates and an intelligence agent for King Philip II - and finally as a prisoner in Seville. The character has since become a central motif in art and philosophy. "One wants to keep encountering him throughout one's life," wrote Orhan Pamuk.