Playwright: Juan Francisco Villa. At: terraNOVA ( sic ) Collective & Playground Theater at Storefront Theater, 66 E. Randolph St. Tickets: Theplaygroundtheater.com; $15. Runs through: Sept. 27
Extraordinary creative energy has gone into this world premiere—several varieties of original music, large-scale puppetry, animation, masks, colorful costumes and references to cultural mythology—and yet the total is not equal to the sum of its parts. The creative ideas don't mesh, perhaps because the root literary idea isn't a match for what Don Chipotle wants to tell. Also, verbal clarity is lost to the Storefront Theater's disastrous acoustics.
Playwright Juan Francisco Villa uses Miguel Cervantes' 1605 Don Quixote as the basis for a tragic contemporary journey of discovery. Quixote is an old man who approaches the world's wrongs with chivalry and honor, albeit frequently-misguided. In Don Chipotle the hero is barely adolescent, a boy who lacks any life tools or philosophy in his journey across New York City's violent, urban landscape. It's unclear what drives Villa's boy hero, Celestino aka Don Chipotle ( Angelica Roque ), other than rage and overheated imagination.
The tale begins when Celestino, returning from school to his tenement apartment, takes something from the mailroom—drugs?—that triggers his mother's anger. Mom ( Wendy Matejo ) rants about his uncle Diego, a violent man and drug criminal, and smacks Celestino across the face. Celestino flees the apartment with his adoring schoolmate Octavio ( Karen Rodriguez ), the Sancho Panza figure, following. In unconnected episodes, the youths encounter the chaos of New York. Many characters appear to be dead as Villa establishes the Mexican Dia de los Muertos as a feverish cultural and visual overlay in Celestino's imagination. Eventually Celestino encounters Tio Diego, who tells him his mother is dead ( when? why? ) and that Octavio is dead by Diego's hand. Celestino/Chipotle sees himself as the agent of death for everyone he loves as the tale ends.
Villa transposes some Quixote episodes with great effectiveness, such as Quixote's battle with a dragon which really is a windmill. The windmill/dragon becomes a subway train with flaming headlights. But too many incidents and characters arrive with utterly no context to explain what/who they are. The problem is doubled by director Jo Catell's decision to have much of the dialogue shouted in anger, excitement or warning, with the clarity of the words completely lost as they bounce and rebound off the theater's naked brick walls. This is a persistent problem at the Storefront Theater of which every director should be aware.
Jenny Lynn Christoffersen and Preyas Roy have composed arresting original music, from church choir to rap, with several songs sung live against Taylor Bibat's and Rachel Singer's charming animation sequences. But the projections are high up and far away and the animations don't seem to match the songs, especially with lyrics lost to the acoustics. Don Chipotle is imaginative and ambitious, but I wish it worked better.
