There are moments of true enchantment in San Francisco writer Octavio Solis' world-premiere adaptation of "Don Quixote." Solis, who revels in the pure delight of storytelling come to life, fills the show with Lynn Jeffries' whimsical and inventive puppets.
The acclaimed playwright ("Santos & Santos," "Lydia") is not, by nature, whimsical, which makes him a good choice to adapt "Don Quixote," which can tend toward the twee and the dreamy, what with the mad central character's "impossible dream" and all.
Tilting at windmills, as Solis knows, isn't entirely funny. Quixote (played with indefatigable gusto by Armando Durn) is a crumbling old man with nothing to show for his life but a stack of well-loved, well-read books full of knights and valor. In his dotage, and with a very loose grip on reality, he breaks from his life, and with the aid of a sidekick, Sancho Panza (Josiah Phillips), he embarks on a quest that will leave him beaten, humiliated and yet somehow undimmed.
Solis fights side by side with Cervantes to puncture hyperromantic chivalric traditions and effectively knock them off their fiery steeds. In contrast, Quixote ambles through his delusions on a trusty swayback called Rocinante, a clever puppet-costume creation with James Jesse Peck as the front and Anna-Lisa Chacon as the rear.
Directed by Laird Williamson, this "Quixote" rambles in places, but a vivacious cast aids the episodic nature of the story. Mysteriously, the show becomes a musical in the final chapters of its Cardenio-Lucinda romantic tale-within-a-tale, but happily tilts more in the direction of comedy and, by the end, compassion.