Theatre review: Don Quixote! Don Quixote! Pleasance Dome (Venue 23)

By Susan Mansfield
Published on 10/08/2012 17:19

Less a retelling of Cervantes than a journey into Don Quixote’s disturbed mind, this play by international theatre collective Panta Rei is high on visual spectacle but low on coherence.

Part of a series of works on mental illness, it introduces the Don and Sancho Panza to a pair of philosophical gravediggers, straight out of Hamlet, for a discourse on life and death in between much shouting and slapstick comedy chases. Though there are some beautiful visual tableaux, it pitches wildly from existential angst to Ealing comedy. The fact that much of it happens in Spanish doesn’t help.

Susan Mansfield

Until 27 August. Today 5:25pm.