1491: Dances with Windmills

Cast:

  • Royal Court
  • Jester
  • Don Quixote
  • Sancho Panza
  • Dulcinea
  • Wallace (Royal Up-Praiser)
  • Willis (Royal Up-Praiser)
  • Palace Guard
  • Town Crier

Synopsis:

Begins with a welcome by the Jester, followed by the Royal Procession. All dialogue is supplied for the Wassail and the Boar’s Head festivities. During the meal there are four interjected running gags around the theme, “Time and Time Again.” These involve the Town Crier, Willis (a Royal Up-Praiser, ) a sundial and a lantern in a wonderfully funny set of short scenes. As you may or may not know, (Most likely not) the Royal Up-Praisers role is to “praise up” the Royal Court,

“For one farthing, we will say some rather nice things about you. For two farthings, we will do mild exaggerations. But for ten farthings, we will praise you with the greatest hyperbole, the most glowing adjectives, and the most artistically puffed up exaltation heard since the elections.”

Now that’s a refreshingly honest job application.

Following the dessert, the Jester again enters and involves the audience in a participation warm-up to the entrance of none other than Don Quixote and his faithful companion, Sancho Panzo, in their previously unrecorded quest in “Merrie Olde England.” They are in quest of adventure, to “succor the needy,” (“Maybe the politicians have already succored their needy?”) and to rescue damsels in distress.

They encounter enchanted forests full of giants, (“..very small giants”) a guard with a Castillian accent and, would you believe, at the Inn of Left-Handed John they discover not only a two headed giant, but the sweet and ever-charming Dulcinea. A hilarious encounter with the Royal Up-Praisers and Don Quixote’s mistaking the Boar’s Head for a damsel in distress add up to a jolly good time for all. Although the theme is Spanish, the entire performance is in English, thus eliminating the need for sub-titles.