DON QUIXOTE

Don Quixote is a lyrical clowning performance inspired by Cervantes’ novel. At its centre is the contrast between Don Quixote — an eccentric romantic living in a world of ideals and imagined adventures — and the much more practical, down-to-earth Dulcinea. Their completely different ways of seeing the world become the source of both humour and tenderness in the performance.

For the scenography, I worked almost entirely with kraft paper. I was interested in its combination of fragility and sculptural quality: it can be shaped into almost anything, but always keeps a sense of something temporary and unstable. This felt connected to Don Quixote’s world of imagination and illusion. At the same time, the crumpled surface of the paper suggested the texture of old stone architecture in Spain.

The performance was created for a very small stage and for touring, so the scenography had to remain simple and compact. The space was formed by curtains made from crumpled kraft paper mounted onto fabric, which could be rolled up for transport and reused for many performances. I made the set by hand while we were still recent graduates of the Theatre Institute, working with almost no production budget.

The costumes follow the language of lyrical clowning rather than historical reconstruction. Don Quixote’s costume was assembled almost like a collage from found garments: a second-hand men’s coat that I reworked and textured, a knitted sweater that suggested chainmail, and a pair of original military breeches transformed into vivid yellow clown trousers. Yellow became a strong accent in his costume, connected to his eccentricity and imaginary world. Dulcinea’s grotesque silhouette, with exaggerated padded proportions, takes the character in the opposite direction — more physical and grounded.