Tilting at life
‘Quixote Nuevo’ brings Cervantes’ tale to U.S. border
In “Quixote Nuevo,” playwright Octavio Solis reimagines Miguel Cervantes’ masterpiece as a border story. Growing old, pursued by death itself, Don Quixote sets out across Texas to find his lost love in Mexico. It’s an epic and intimate story Solis could have struggled to cast. Instead he found Emilio Delgado to play his lead.
Best known as Luis during a 44year run on “Sesame Street,” the 79-year-old actor began on the stage and has lately devoted an increasing amount of time to his first love, from roles in Shakespeare to Gabriel García Márquez adaptations.
“I was 14 when I got the lead in the school play, singing and dancat ing and acting, and when I heard the applause, I thought, ‘This is it, this is what I want to do,’” Delgado said ahead of “Quixote Nuevo,” now through Dec. 8 at the Avenue of the Arts/Huntington Avenue Theatre. “But this production is something very special for me. I grew up on the border in California. There are three cultures, Mexican, American and MexicanAmerican, and as a border kid I know all three.”
In Solis’ play, Quixote doesn’t tilt windmills but border patrol drones. Death in the form of roving bands of guitar-playing Calacas, or skeletons, track him as he hopes to find a love he left in Mexico long ago.
“As a young boy, he fell in love with her and wrote her love letters and promised he would go back for her,” Delgado said. “What happened is he chickened out and had to live with that cowardice.”
The actor describes the production as both classic and contemporary in its view of our culture.
“Xenophobia has always been with us but it’s raised its ugly head in a new way these days,” he said. “It’s important to address that.”
Born during the golden age of Hollywood, 200 miles south of Los Angeles in Calexico, Delgado began acting in a time when Latinos landed few parts, and those they did win usually had them shooting white cowboys. Playing Luis on “Sesame Street” turned into Delgado’s biggest source of professional pride.
“This is going back 50 years, when Latinos were not part of the mainstream media in any way,” he said. “Getting that role on ‘Sesame’ had me playing someone who was part of a community, someone who had a family and a business, who was likable and compassionate. These qualities had never been shown in a Latino character. We were always gang bangers or prostitutes or criminals. Luis was a real person.”
Playwright Solis, who worked on
Disney’s “Coco,” is a generation younger than Delgado but is part of a theater scene and Hollywood industry where Latinos remain underrepresented. “Quixote Nuevo,” with its Latino cast and creative team including director KJ Sanchez, is an outlier.
“There have been changes (in the industry) but it is a very slow change,” Delgado said. “There’s a lot more work to be done. … But I am thankful for ‘Quixote’ and its team. Telling this story, and with this collaborative team, is a wonderful thing to do.”