They walked the rounds in on us
methodically adjusting the range
just like we'd been trained to do.
TANKS! Sweet Mary! Mother of God!
They have TANKS!
-- Rue Sans Joie, 1972
Dear Phil, Editorial Page Editor of the newspaper formerly known as the Arizona Republican:
Speaking of historians (Phil Boas on historians and oppression, 1/21/18), I took wife and child to see Man of La Mancha Friday last. It was a good show. Not as electric as Hamilton, not as rich with snappy tunes as Les Mis. The Herberger's a good size for a Broadway show. At the 3000-seat Gammage here in Phoenix, you're lucky if you can hear what the cast is singing ... assuming everyone in the cast can sing ... which isn't a Gammage guarantee. My wife and child had a real good time.
I knew something was up as soon as I walked into the theater. There was big picture of dictator Franco hanging in the background. "Nuts, this is gonna be political." Pardon me if I'm late on figuring this out. I've been busy.
Man is a play within a play. Miguel Cervantes has been arrested by the Inquisition and while he waits trial he improvises a play about Don Quixote for the other prisoners. They sing a little. They dance ... very well. The demented old man (Don Quixote) who thinks he's a knight loses a fight with a windmill. As the play ends the guards announce that Cervantes is to be tried by the Inquisition of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. While Cervantes is dragged off stage by the guards, the cast defiantly sings:
To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go...
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go...
The performance got a standing ovation.
Imagine the fuss in town if the play hadn't misappropriated the life of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and had been candid about who actually oppressed him. Cervantes was never tried by the Inquisition. He was a devout Catholic and fought as a Spanish marine at the famous Battle of Lepanto against a Muslim invasion fleet -- the Crusaders' Last Battle. He was wounded three times and permanently lost the use of a hand. Some time later his ship was captured by the Barbary Pirates (subject of the US Marine Corps hymn) and Cervantes was held as a Muslim slave for five years in Algeria until his family was able to ransom his freedom.
My oppressed daughter, whose dad took her to see Hamilton on Broadway the summer before last, is at the Women's March this morning.
Your pal,
Gilligan
North SAR, Linebacker Strike Group, Pocket Money Strike Group
PS: Cervantes also authored The Seige of Numantia, a play about the destruction of the Celtic settlement on Spain's Duoro river by a Roman army. The play was quite popular back in the day. I wonder if it will come to the Herberger here in Phoenix anytime soon.
PPS: I took my daughter to the Hillary rally at Central High in the fall of '16. Adrian Fontes gave a real stem-winder on oppression -- our new County Recorder can really pound a podium. But no Hillary. We had to settle for Bernie. On the way out we were confronted by real live, placard carrying Communists screaming: "America was never great!" Reminded me of the 60s ... except the Russians are the enemy this time around.
