I follow a quest to find the meaning of Man of La Mancha's "The Quest"

I’m always interested in the origins of things: the why. So for the selection “The Impossible Dream” (titled “The Quest” in the actual script) from Man of La Mancha that I’ve sung with my own choir I wanted to know why on earth a popular Broadway show had been made from a 400-year-old, 700-page novel, Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Doesn’t sound all that likely, does it? And yet it happened. (There are lots of other unlikely origins for Broadway musicals, though—Kiss Me, Kate is based on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.)

The whole thing got started with a guy named Dale Wasserman, and he is such an interesting person in his own right that I have to rein myself in here or he’ll just take over this whole post. I would strongly encourage you to read his Wikipedia entry. How he got from an orphanage in South Dakota to fame and fortune on Broadway is quite a story, even in the summary provided. By the time he was 41 he’d already participated in winning a collective Emmy for the 1955 season of Matinee Theater in which his first play, “Elisha and the Long Knives,” was presented. (No, it wasn’t about the prophet Elisha in the Old Testament but about a boy who survives a massacre and is taken care of by three hunters.) Wasserman ended up writing 30 more television dramas, one of which was a non-musical dramatization of Cervantes’ novel. He says in the intro to the musical that his original play:

had its inception in Madrid in 1959 when I read in a newspaper that my purpose in Spain was research for a dramatization of Don Quixote. [So, I assume, some sort of gossip-column commentary along the idea of “Dale Wasserman is vacationing in Spain; word on the street is that he’s working on a dramatization . . . ” Just something to fill out a column. And from that chance reading by Wasserman of a chance comment in a newspaper a great idea was born. Ain’t that the way?] The idea was laughing-matter, for like the great majority of people who have heard of Don Quixote, I had never read it. Madrid seemed a place appropriate to repair that omission, however, so I waded in, emerging from Volume Two with the conviction that this monument to human wit and folly could not, and should not, be dramatized. What had snared my interest was not the book but its author. For one learns that the life of Miguel de Cervantes was a catalogue of catastrophe. (accessed from the Kindle edition sample available on Amazon.com.)

So Wasserman wrote a 90-minute TV play that dramatized an episode in Cervantes’ life in which the writer had been thrown in prison by the Spanish Inquisition, and he incorporated only a few scenes from the novel itself. We don’t have any recordings of the performance, as it was broadcast live from a television sound stage; it’s not clear to me that it was even filmed at the time. We’re just told that “no footage survives,” which is probably true for most of those early TV broadcasts. Remember, we’re in the 1950’s and no one has thought up such things as sitcoms or other series; instead, this new medium was seen as a way to bring original drama to the masses. That and news broadcasts, as well as sports. I always like to tell the story of how my dad bought our first TV in 1956 supposedly as a present for my brother’s first birthday; in reality, he (that is, my dad) wanted to watch the World Series. (Brooklyn Dodgers vs. the New York Yankees; Yankees won the series 4-3.)

Ho-kay. Where were we? Let’s see: we’ve reached the point where Wasserman has turned his interest in Cervantes into a play. (He was always very adamant that the play, and later the musical, were not adaptations of the novel, as noted above.) He wasn’t very pleased with it, as he thought it was lacking some element to make it come totally alive, and he was actually relieved when no one took up the option on the re-write he had done for Broadway. Finally, the director Albert Marre called Wasserman and told him, “Your play is superb, but it must become a musical.” Yes! That was what the story needed. A team was assembled: Wasserman as the original writer, Joe Darion as the lyricist (who replaced the poet W. H. Auden—he may have written great poetry but was apparently no great shakes as a Broadway lyricist), and Mitch Leigh as the composer. Marre directed. All did not go smoothly, as efforts to attract investors proved very difficult. No one thought that the musical would be successful as it was seen as too “radical, special, and intellectual.” Wasserman says that Man of La Mancha “floundered rather than marched” to production. Eventually, at least according to one source, Mitch Leigh put up the money to get the thing staged; he was apparently independently wealthy. Once the production got through its out-of-town previews and finally made it to Broadway there were some mighty red faces among those who had poohed-poohed it. Among other rave reviews, “Life magazine called the show ‘a metaphysical smasheroo.’” The original production ran for over 2,300 performances and has been revived many times since then.

The musical, like the preceding TV drama, is structured as a play within a play, or actually a play within a play within a play. Cervantes puts on a play that dramatizes parts of his novel in order to prove to his fellow prisoners that they shouldn’t steal his manuscript. There are three layers: the real world of the prison with the author Cervantes, then his play about the old man whose real name is Alonso Quijano, who then takes on the persona of an old-fashioned knight, Don Quixote, and has all sorts of misguided adventures. This three-layer structure also means that the actor who plays the lead has to portray all three characters. Various prisoners are drawn into the drama but also maintain their own identities. Our selection, simply titled “The Quest” in the original libretto, is first sung by Cervantes in the character of Don Quixote. He sings the song in answer to the question by a female prisoner named Escalente who is Aldonza (a Spanish name meaning “sweet”) in the play but whom he calls Dulcinea (the Latin word for “sweet,” which Don Q thinks is more dignified). Here’s the dialogue that takes place as Don Quixote keeps vigil over his armor the night before he is to be knighted:

ALDONZA
Why do you do these things?
DON QUIXOTE
What things?
ALDONZA
These ridiculous… the things you do!
DON QUIXOTE
I hope to add some measure of grace to the world.
ALDONZA
The world’s a dung heap and we are maggots that crawl on it!
DON QUIXOTE
My Lady knows better in her heart.
ALDONZA
What’s in my heart will get me halfway to hell.
And you, Señor Don Quixote-you’re going to take such a beating!
DON QUIXOTE
Whether I win or lose does not matter.
ALDONZA
What does?
DON QUIXOTE
Only that I follow the quest.
ALDONZA (spits)
That for your Quest!
(turns, marches away; stops, turns back and asks, awkwardly)
What does that mean… quest?
DON QUIXOTE
It is the mission of each true knight…His duty… nay, his privilege!
(And he then launches into the song.)

The song is partially reprised by Aldonza and Alonso Quijano/Don Quixote as the old man dies:

ALDONZA
Won’t you please bring back
The dream of Dulcinea…
Won’t you bring me back
The bright and shining glory
Of Dulcinea… Dulcinea…
DON QUIXOTE
Then perhaps… it was not a dream…
ALDONZA
(kneeling beside Quixote again.)
You spoke of a dream. And about the Quest!
DON QUIXOTE
Quest?
ALDONZA
Yes, how you must fight and it doesn’t matter whether you win or lose if only you follow the Quest!
DON QUIXOTE
The words. Tell me the words!
(She speaks/sings the song.)

(both dialogue sections are taken from the website allmusicals.com.)

The final reprise of “The Quest” is sung by the prisoners as Cervantes and his servant are called out of the prison to their trial, and there the musical ends.

Pretty cool, huh? My only real acquaintance with this musical before I wrote this post had been from a rather amateurish performance I attended back in grad school. It took me awhile to grasp what was actually going on, but now I’d love to see a professional-level live performance. In the meantime, here are two videos for your viewing pleasure. I simply could not resist the one of Jim Nabors singing it on the old TV series Gomer Pyle USMC, a show that’s like tapioca pudding: You either love it or hate it. (I love it.) The other is from the filmed version, with Sophia Loren playing Aldonza/Dulcinea and Peter O’Toole playing Cervantes/Quijano/Quixote. This particular video splices together the three places where the song appears. It’s pretty good! Apparently the film wasn’t very successful; I don’t know why. Watch it and see what you think.