University of Wisconsin Stout - Tower Yearbook (Menomonie, WI)

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Theatre From The Director Man Of La Mancha To try, through you ' re wayworm and weary, to reach the unreachable star ... Most of us have become fa- miliar with Joe Carion ' s lyr- ics to The Impossible Dream, one of the all time favorites showtunes of the last twenty- five years. It ' s not easy, lis- tening to the song in a Vegas- style revue or Ray Conniff ' ed in a dentist ' s office, to keep the music and the words in their origional context. In Man of La Mancha, the song subtitled The Quest is used to explain why, in the words of its singer, it doesn ' t matte r whether one wins or loses in the quest to bring some measure of grace to the world. Too often the song is sung as an Anthem to self- actualization, with the in- ferred message that if one dares to dream, one ' s dreams will come true. Don Quixote, the wisest of madmen, would caution us otherwise. It is not the realization of our dreams that matters-only the dream- ing. Don Miguel de Cervan- tes, the author of Quixots ad- ventures, was no nightclub crooner. He was a man as wayworn and weary as a man could be-destitute, enslaved, imprisoned, crippled by war and human cruelty-and his creation is a testament to un- provoked optimism and exu- berance. By rights he should have become bitter and cyni- cal in his old age, yet his gaze remained fixed on the stars, not on his thorns. The Man Of La Mancha celebrated in our play is not the lunatic Quijana Quixote, but his re- markable maker. Where the mad knight ultimately fails, Cervantes triumphs, for in his dream vision he has ad- ded for all time an inestima- ble measure of grace to our world. Codspell Regardless of who we are and what we believe in, our lives have been fundamental- ly shaped by the story that underlies Godspell. The teachings and sayings of Je- sus have fascinated writers, theologians, philosophers and artists for centuries, and each has sought to capture the essence of this enigmatic Nazarene in the particular language or medium in which they worked. Of course, it is not possible to deal with such a subject without arousing some very strong responses on the part of those who be- lieve they have already found the definite answers to any and all Jesus questions and who in turn consider any new approaches to the topic as he- retical if not downright criminal. Godspell is not in- tended as history. It is a the- atre, and in the language and techniques of that art it wres- tles here with the questions that this story, this seminal event of history asks of us. -Dr. James M. Miller 1 I I 18 — Theatre

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Family Weekend brings 21st Annual Auto Show Family Weekend