James Wilson as Don Quixote and Lluis Valls as Sancho Panza. Photo by Alice Shaw

"Can you now safely swear," Don Quixote asks his servant Sancho Panza, "that I'm mad?"  Indeed.  Mad he most certainly is.  And yet, would that we were all quite so mad.  The Theatre of Yugen's world premiere stage adaptation of Cervantes' Don Quixote selects key scenes from the novel and supplements them with extreme physicality.  As adapted by Joint Artistic Director Lluis Valls with the ensemble, there's much fun going on... but (on opening night) at too slow a pace.

Opening with a recitative in painfully rhyming couplets, narrator Jubilith Moore sports a grin that would put the Cheshire Cat to shame.  Enter tall and slender Dox Quixote (tall and slender James Wilson) and his faithful servant Sancho Panza (Lluis Valls).  To Sancho's dismay, Don Q. has decided to single-handedly reintroduce chivalry into the world.  Almost immediately, they dutifully attack those famous windmill-monsters, and then proceed on their knight errant's quest, journeying through the land.  As champion to the downtrodden, the decidedly mad Don Q. wrongfully attacks again and again, victims supplied by the versatile ensemble of Sheila Berotti, Brady Gill, and Norman Muñoz.  And he is surprisingly successful.  In Act Two, he encounters a scheming Duchess (Moore) who seems to grant their most fervent wishes.

The ensemble works together quite well.  They quickly establish a style, and all work together consistently to maintain it.  Impossibly slender Wilson elegantly recreates the elongated Don Q. of Picasso fame.  His looks and postures of utter befuddlement are delightful.  Valls as Sancho keeps the story moving along, and well captures the devotion of a friend and back-seat protector.  Moore is a wickedly fun duchess of devious devices.  Portraying a wide variety of characters, adorable Brady Gill's very best incarnation is a magic ape.  His flexible body seems capable of anything.  Berotti and Muñoz complete the cast, creating over a dozen roles between them!

The adaptation by Valls demands lots of clowning and physical slapstick comedy, resulting in a hybrid between adult and children's theatre.  The selection of scenes from the book consist of the more visual moments, including hand-to-hand fighting, lance work, etc.  Though Act One seems to end the play, the ever-grinning narrator manages to find more adventures to give us a complete Act Two as well, totaling about two hours.

Bay Area guitarist David McLean provides a glorious musical accompaniment throughout the play.  Every moment is enhanced by his Spanish-flavored compositions.  Bravo!  Director Libby Zilber works wondrously well with stage magic.  The more difficult the staging, the more surprising and clever the solution.  When Don Q. must attack the windmill (and he must!), the actor is replaced by a small puppet attacking a tiny cut-out windmill.  And it works.  But the major difficulty seems to be the pacing.  All the clowning can fall flat when proliferated by pauses or when the audience must passively watch the sheer mechanics of making the slapstick work.  Those seconds can resound like eons.  Surely with time, however, the pace will pick up, the clowning will become more fluid, and the creativity of the antics will triumph.

The enchanting set design by Max consists of huge canvas "pages" that open in a stage-dominating "book," and they become the backdrops for the various locales, making for quick changes of time and place, well bolstered by Stephen Siegel's flexible lighting design.  Marilyn Yu-Li makes durable costumes (and occasional props) from the light-weight canvas.  Very resourceful.

It's an unfortunate world where chivalry, idealism, and the courage to fight for what's right seem to indicate madness.  Cervantes knew it then, and we know it now.  Check out Don Q for some magical moments that may help shine some light on our own trying times.

Don Q continues until May 13 at the NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa St., SF.  Tix ($15-$20) call (415) 621-7978 or go to www.theatreofyugen.org