The Impossible Musical by Dale Wasserman

This afternoon I caught an episode of Gunsmoke called "Stark" with Richard Kiley as guest star. Seeing Mr. Kiley reminded me that I'd started to write something about a book that discusses his most famous role . Thinking about it, I should have been reminded about the by the Tony Awards this past Sunday but somehow it took seeing Kiley in a most un-Cervantes role to link the synapses.

The Impossible Musical is first and foremost, the biography of a play, Man of La Mancha. It performs double-duty as the Rhinelander, Wisconsin-born Dale Wasserman's memoir of his long and storied career as a playwright and screenwriter.

On November 9, 1959 a teleplay written by Wasserman aired live on CBS' DuPont Show of the Month. Called I, Don Quixote, the production was widely acclaimed by critics and audience alike and starred Lee J. Cobb, Eli Wallach and Colleen Dewhurst. So many of the productions of the Golden Age of Television exist only as entries in encyclopedias and history and such a fate might have been I, Don Quixote's except that associates convinced Wasserman to turn the television play into a musical. The 1965 production ran for 2,328 performances and won five Tony Awards.

I saw Man of La Mancha when I was in college. It would have been at the Martin Beck Theatre, the Eden Theatre or the Mark Hellinger Theatre depending on the year. All I'm sure of is that it was not the ANTA Washington Square Theatre, the original home of the production. Since I’ve always been a fan of Northern Exposure, I was delighted to learn from reading the book that the marvelous John Cullum (Holling Vincoeur) was a member of the original cast and filled in on occasion for Richard Kiley in the title role.

Wasserman regales his readers with plenty of Broadway lore, theater stories, Hollywood stories, and the trials and tribulations of a copyright holder dealing with foreign productions of his work. As outspoken in print as he apparently was in person, he settles a few old scores,and takes pains to explain the distinction between Broadway and Off-Broadway play. It is not the theater’s physical location but the type of contract involved. Lavishly illustrated with personal photographs and photos from various productions of Man of La Mancha, The Impossible Musical includes the teleplay I, Don Quixote.