In case Don Quixote, the greatness of Miguel de Cervantes, and “Dul-cin-eh-aaaahhhh!” fly either above or below your referential radar, here’s the setup for Dale Wasserman’s Man of La Mancha: Spanish inquisitors have thrown Cervantes and his friend Sancho in the dungeon for foreclosing on a church.
The two have committed the sin of attempting to force governors to play by the same rules as the governed, and for this they will likely be killed. To add to their troubles in jail, their fellow prisoners set up a kangaroo court as a way to rob them of what little they have.
In an attempt to buy time and perhaps sing for their freedom, Cervantes transforms himself into that Knight of the Woeful Countenance, Don Quixote, and tells his comical/sorrowful tale of adventure and romance, which is all about how you have to see the saint in the prostitute and the Golden Helmet of Mambrino in the shaving basin if you want to get by in this awful world.
