The under-appreciated comic genius of the play may very well be John-Paul Giugliano '01in his role as Governor, Innkeeper and unsuspecting knight. Bearing the brunt of Quixote's delusion by providing him with both lodging and a stage upon which to play out his fantasies, Giugliano is the perfect small businessman. He struggles earnestly to please the demands of his no-nonsense wife (Lara Z. Jirmanus '01) while accommodating the out-of-control antics of his patrons without losing dignity.

Another of the production's great moments comes when Giugliano, adorably clad in a nightshirt and cap, makes very tidy work of dubbing Don Quixote knight, though he must do it three times in order to get it to Greene's satisfaction.

Though "Man of la Mancha" might be light, it's hardly simple. One can almost watch the script wander off in pursuit of deep philosophical riddles like "who was really the fool, Don Quixote, or the people that had no illusions?" or "which is really real? Wasserman's imagined Cervantes? Cervantes' imagined Quijano? Quijono's imagined Quixote? The play we are seeing, or the world outside of it? etc. etc."

Fortunately, every time these sorts of questions start to loom, it's time for a song and we can all relax back into lighthearted revelry.

By and large the production doesn't suffer much at the hands of the various "play within a play" permutations that comprise it. All of the actors do a good job of managing three or four different characters without letting one run into the other, and Naeemah A. White-Peppers' clever costume design aids them in this. Occasionally the show begins to drag when the lack of distance between the audience and the players makes it difficult to suspend disbelief.

Blocking and set change are both complicated by the small performance space and the lack of a curtain, and this production didn't have the perfection of design which is needed to surmount those hurdles.

As with most musical theater, the degree to which the acting needed to be stylized sometimes seemed to be in question, producing a similar sort of breakdown in the theatrical magic.