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In this phantasmagorical play, the Camino Real (pronunciation: Cá-mino Réal) is a long highway, a dead end, a police state in a vaguely Latin American country, a nightmare, and an inescapable condition. Characters from history and literature<U+2014>Don Quixote, Casanova, Camille, Lord Byron<U+2014>inhabit a place where corruption, starvation, indifference and greed have immobilized anyone who tries to escape. Then, into this netherworld, the archetypal Kilroy arrives<U+2014>a sailor and all-American guy with "a heart as big as the head of baby." Like others before him in the Camino Real, Kilroy is robbed, conned, turned into a patsy, and he very nearly breaks...but not quite. When this experimental epic opened on Broadway in 1953, it confounded the critics, but not the audiences. The play's iconic/ironic humor, playful conceits, and towering concerns about society's demand for conformity, the courage of the artist, and the power of compassion have made it a classic.
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