Review: In Lookingglass Theatre's ‘Circus Quixote,' the magical parts don't always make a whole

Chicago Tribune

11-02-2025

With a beautiful — truly splendiferous — new lobby at the Water Tower Water Works, Lookingglass Theatre has come back to life with a rich, circus-infused show designed to remind everyone of its crucial historical role in the Chicago theater aesthetic.
Huzzah for that. I've long thought the history of Chicago theater rests on a three-legged stool: The improv tradition of Second City, the in-your-face acting made famous by Steppenwolf Theatre, and the decades of innovative work by Lookingglass, as incubated at Northwestern University, that made Chicago a center for turning non-dramatic works of all kinds (novels, poems, notebooks) into fresh, beautiful, physical shows.
The new production, 'Circus Quixote,' a new adaptation by David and Kerry Catlin of Miguel de Cervantes' 'Don Quijote of La Mancha,' is very much in that wheelhouse, given this 17th century work's foundational role when it comes to the development of the novel, especially in Spain. Characters such as Aldonza/Dulcinea (Laura Murillo Hart), Sancho Panza (Eduardo Martinez) and Don Q himself (Michel Rodríguez Cintra) all are familiar to fans of the musical 'The Man of La Mancha,' but this is a Lookingglass show so nobody is about to start warbling 'The Impossible Dream.' We're dealing with the source here, in all of its quixotic glory.
It would be more poetic, for sure, to declare this comeback show a great triumph, but the truth is that 'Circus Quixote' has its issues, although in my book that does not make its appearance any less welcome. Lookingglass' Achilles heel over the years has been to get lost in details instead of focusing on what really matters in and around the theater. I would not say that tendency is vanquished here.
If you looking at the piece on a moment-by-moment basis, it's quite delightful, given the oodles of creativity evidenced in Courtney O'Neill's fabulously inventive design (a great wall of books, among other things), the spectacular and witty puppets from Grace Needlman (part of the reason why Act 2 is much stronger than Act 1), the circus experiences devised by the great Sylvia Hernandez-DiStasi (unevenly present, but welcome every time) and the general joie de vivre and love of adventure that the director David Catlin long has brought to his work with this company. There are some wonderful individual pieces of staging, so clever that I started to realize just how much I have missed what this theater company can do.
But a show based around a quest needs an empathetic, charismatic lead to show the audience the way and define the desired takeaway. And despite charm and talent, Cintra does not command the center of the experience, or at least he did not at the Friday performance I saw. Frankly, I'm not convinced the adaptation helps him enough in that quest.
There are a pair of competing narrators in the piece, including Cervantes (Martinez), and that little battle over who has the right to tell whose story, while interesting and very Lookingglass, often pulls focus from our dreamy main man here. ('The Man of La Mancha' actually contained some lessons there.) On that same theme, for a show that is so sophisticated in its vision of storytelling, it demurs when it comes to really looking audiences in the eye and telling them what they are watching, and why. There's a lot of air in the piece.
There's also some tonal inconsistency. At times, it feels like we are watching a Spanish 'Spamalot,' at others, more of a cirque-like dreamscape, at still others, a philosophy seminar. Such eclecticism is baked into the novel, granted, and also in the circus itself. But there's still a fine line between tonally eclectic and tonally inconsistent and this show needs a firmer focus on the former.
This is Cervantes, y'all. A contemporary audience needs some help.
What's at stake in individual moments is perfectly clear. The stage drips with talent (both Andrea San Miguel and Ayana Strutz are especially strong) and myriad forms of invention. But what are we to feel? There's the rub. Are we celebrating hope and endurance for its own sake or witnessing the cautionary tale of a cockeyed optimist?
It could be all of the above by all means, but the show hasn't yet linked its individual scenes to a fully clear position.
I still found the piece admirable (those theatrical moments are that skilled and sweet). The big issue here, given the richness of the material, strikes me as eminently fixable. By the time you go — and this company deserves support in its comeback — perhaps fixed it will have been. The lodestar is perfectly reachable.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
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Review: 'Circus Quixote' (3 stars)
When: Through March 30
Where: Lookingglass Theatre in the Water Tower Water Works, 163 E. Pearson St.
Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes