Acting Makes Up for Flaws in Solo ‘Cervantes’

According to the program notes, Harry Cason wrote “That Certain Cervantes” at the specific urging of a friend, actor Henry Darrow, who felt that a solo show about the famed creator of “Don Quixote de la Mancha” would be a fitting theatrical vehicle for himself.

Darrow’s instincts were correct. As is quickly apparent in the play’s world premiere, presented by Espinoza Theatricals at the El Portal’s Circle Theatre, the casting of Darrow in the title role is fortuitous. An affable old pro if there ever was one, Darrow makes up a dream cast all by his lonesome.

Cason’s play is a dream too--disordered and difficult to remember.

The action is set in 1614 Madrid, two years before Cervantes’ death. Poor and frustrated, the elderly Miguel de Cervantes (Darrow) is still struggling to support his large household, including his wife, his female servants and a bevy of unmarried sisters. His groundbreaking book, “Don Quixote,” has earned him massive fame but little cold cash. However, on this red-letter day, Cervantes expects an important visitor, a nobleman who he hopes will become his artistic patron, freeing him, at long last, to concentrate fully on his literary endeavors.

In Act One, while he awaits this emissary, Cervantes reminisces about his own eventful past, holding forth about his service in the bloody battle of Lepanto and his subsequent kidnapping by pirates, among other colorful episodes. In Act Two, still awaiting his guest, Cervantes launches into a sort of readers’ theater presentation of “Don Quixote,” reenacting some of that book’s most famous scenes.

Darrow is a genial host, and director Debra De Liso admirably expedites the disconnected action. However, the two halves of the play never fuse, and the plot seems more an occasion for anecdote than a cohesive whole.

Cervantes keeps up a running dialogue with himself throughout, asking and answering his own questions, an expository device that is thin to the point of transparency.

But to his great credit, and in defiance of all dramatic shortcomings, Darrow prances along the surface of his negligible material like a thoroughbred on thin ice.

*

“That Certain Cervantes,” El Portal Center for the Arts’ Circle Theatre, 5269 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Ends Nov. 11. $25. (818) 508-4200. Running time: 2 hours.