The song “The Impossible Dream” captured the national imagination when a man lay dead on the tarmac—a tragedy precipitated by his decision to return to his homeland despite the imminent threat of political persecution. He was, after all, foremost among the fiercest opponents of the dictator who had been in power for 17 years.

Days later as he lay in his coffin still wearing the bloody clothes from that fateful day, that song blared from megaphones outside the church where mourners had gathered. The radio station run by the Catholic Church played the track in near-constant rotation. In the days and months following his killing, a massive protest movement spread across the archipelago, and the song became the sonic signature of a nation’s quest for freedom.

In Repertory Philippines’ third staging of “Man of La Mancha,” the Broadway musical first produced in 1965, the song “The Impossible Dream” stands as the play’s philosophical manifesto—a soaring tribute to the idea of noble madness and the stubborn, willful pursuit of a goal.

Modern global politics

Repertory Philippines takes Alonso Quijano’s quest for a better world—arguably one of the most universal themes, though one that often spirals into cliché—and uses it to visualize modern global politics, much like the man who lay dead on the tarmac did.

Miguel de Cervantes (played by Nonie Buencamino) enters the stage from the audience, followed by his loyal manservant (Marvin Ong), as they are being committed to prison. He claims to be a poet and playwright but was arrested for foreclosing on a monastery. It was the time of the Spanish Inquisition, and its penal forces were incarcerating those who had committed offenses against the Church.

However, the guards who escort Cervantes and his servant are not from the Spanish Inquisition. The prisoners are not the murderers and thieves that playwright Dale Wasserman originally envisioned in 1965. Instead, the guards resemble the constables associated with the white supremacist rhetoric of the “Make America Great Again” movement. They wear the familiar body armor and headgear seen in the news, resembling the men who rain blows on undocumented people in the United States.

Director Nelsito Gomez immediately reframes the prison population; those awaiting trial are not thieves or murderers but people of color and suspected irregular migrants targeted by a white supremacist regime. The visual weight of the scene relies heavily on these details: I see a woman wearing a hijab and a young mother cradling an infant.

Rather than a cold limestone dungeon from the era of the Inquisition, the setting is a brightly lit, modern penal colony. Within this space, the walls are tiled in a sterile off-white, punctuated by two hanging exhaust fans. Slivers of sunlight suggest the narrow windows of a modern prison. These stark visual cues anchor the production to the present day, emphasizing how modern carceral spaces are used by the populist leader to lock away those he labels as castaways.

The poet-playwright and his servant carry a trunk full of theatrical paraphernalia, including the manuscript of Cervantes’ play. The self-appointed governor (Tarek El Tayech) goads him into mounting a defense of his case, warning that if he loses, the manuscript will be confiscated.

Cervantes offers to stage his play as his defense, and his servant unpacks their belongings. The wire-netting fence standing between the actors and the audience ascends, and a play within a play begins. Cervantes assumes the role of the protagonist—Alonso Quijano, a wandering knight whose imagination soars or deludes, depending on one’s interpretation of reality. By his side stands Sancho Panza, the archetypal sidekick.

Quijano encounters Aldonza (Katherine Sunga), a kitchen aide and sex worker for whom the local men line up. He calls her Dulcinea, a noble and virtuous woman who has captured his heart. Aware of her own destitute reality, Aldonza utterly disdains the way he elevates her into a creature of virtue. Yet, when Quijano prepares to be knighted, Aldonza arrives to witness the event. She fiercely challenges his naïve optimism, but Alonso again displays his capacity to believe in something better than his circumstances as he breaks into his anthem, “The Impossible Dream.”

Cultural representations 

Alonso Quijano becomes a victim of a group of thieves—gypsies and Moors—who first entice him before stealing his belongings, while Aldonza/Dulcinea is caught in a violent clash with muleteers. The portrayal of Alonso’s encounter with society’s outcasts leans on the stereotype of the sensual, untrustworthy “Easterner,” with a woman using seductive dance as a form of deception and the men depicted as thieves.

This scene treads difficult terrain, especially given a cultural climate that urges us to reconsider how such groups are represented. Modern directors may need to reimagine this scene to avoid reinforcing outdated stereotypes that progressive politics has already challenged.

After being defeated by the Knight of Mirrors, Alonso is forced to confront his true image: an aging man consumed by idealism and deluded by the persona of Don Quixote.

What’s liberating about this experience is how Repertory Philippines shapes new meanings out of a foundational classic, enabling the company to thoughtfully adapt its messages for today’s context—where issues like populism and white supremacy echo past struggles with totalitarianism and religious intolerance.

As the play within the play concludes and the wire fence lowers, Repertory Philippines leaves us with one of the most powerful images in contemporary theater: as Cervantes is led away by the regime’s officers, the prisoners turn to the fence, fingers clutching the wire and faces pressed against the grids, singing “The Impossible Dream.” It is a striking display of resistance and radical hope.

Audiences are participants in this meaning-making process. While the visual image of resistance to the detention of undocumented migrants comes to mind, I am also transported back to that chapter of our national history, where a man who hummed that song in his heart lay dead on the tarmac, leaving it to linger in our national imagination. On the way out of the theater, I saw a person of color whose age suggested he might have witnessed the American Civil Rights Movement, and whose theatrical experience might have triggered the memory of his own hero who dreamt of, and died for, impossible dreams. CS

“Man of La Mancha” is showing at REP Eastwood Theater, 4th Floor, Citywalk 2, Eastwood, Quezon City, on June 13-14, 20-21, and 27-28 at 3:30 p.m. and 8 p.m.

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