This weekend (Januray 17, 2020) The Alley Theatre brings us "Quixto Nuevo" on their Hubbard Stage. The play directed by Austin, Texas-based KJ Sanchez and starring “Sesame Street’s” Emilio Delgado, as Quixote Nuevo is an inspiring reimagining 
of Cervantes’ Don Quixote by celebrated playwright Octavio Solis. Set in a fictional modern-day Texas border town, Quixote and his sidekick embark on an adventure in search of long-lost love. Infused with imagination, Tejano music, and true Texas soul. Quixote Nuevo shows the challenges of living in this modern world all the while in pursuit of a lost dream. The play is a co-production with Hartford Stage and Huntington Theater Company.
Not content to live out his final days in a room where he’d slowly dwindle to nothingness, Quijano takes up his helm, er bedpan — or more properly “headpan” — in a fit of passion taking on the persona of Don Quixote on a quest for his beloved Dulcinea (Gisela Chipe) who is across the border in Mexico.
Along the way he picks up his neighbor, ice cream salesman Manny Diaz (Juan Manuel Amador), to be his Sancho Panza.
The two go on adventures addressing the current socio-political climate on the border, meeting migrant workers, immigrants, and border patrol agents.
Solis’ writing is a beautiful blend of Spanish and English, jumping back and forth between the two languages. Though knowledge of both languages would be beneficial to understand all the humor throughout the show, it won’t prohibit most people from understanding what is going on throughout.
The same issue occurs with some of the ancillary friends and family characters that surround Quijano and Manny. This may be intentional since those characters lack the vision and fantasy that have consumed the two heroes. Whether it is a directing choice or a writing choice or an acting choice, it makes, the characters come off a bit stiff and uninteresting compared to Quijano and Manny.
Delgado gives a bittersweet, sensitive, yet, at times, hysterical performance as Quijano/Quixote. His back and forth between being cogent and riding through his delusions is beautifully detailed at times, and his confrontation with a border patrol balloon drone is absolutely absurd.