FAQ

The biggest difference, other than the fact that the film uses mostly actors who are not singers, is that the play is performed entirely on one set suggesting the inside of a dungeon, while the film uses full scenery, very accurately rendered in style. In the original stage production, the set consisted simply of a large floor resembling a stone slab, with a huge drawbridge-staircase on which Cervantes made his first entrance and his final exit. There was a trap door in the floor, and it was opened at one point to drag out another prisoner. There was a grille with streaming light above the drawbridge. There was no show curtain.

All other scenery in the play was only suggested. Onstage, one never actually saw the windmill that Don Quixote attacks, nor the actual courtyard of the inn, nor the horse trough on which Don Quixote laid his armor as he was keeping vigil over it. The audience had to imagine all of this, just as they had to imagine that the makeshift mattress was Don Quixote's bed.

Another difference between the show and the film is the reason for the arrest of Cervantes, the author of "Don Quixote". Onstage, he was a tax collector at the time that the story takes place, and was arrested for foreclosing on a monastery that wouldn't pay. In the film, he is a part-time actor, and is arrested for putting on a show that offends the Spanish Inquisition.

Two songs from the stage production, "What Does He Want Of Me?" and "To Each His Dulcinea", are completely left out of the film. The entire gypsy scene, with its "Moorish Dance", is also omitted. All of the rest of the songs are in the film, though several are slightly shortened from their stage originals.

The orchestra for the stage production of "Man of La Mancha" featured no stringed instruments other than Spanish guitar and string bass. The film does add strings to it, but they are used very discreetly. The orchestration in the film, just as in the show, concentrates on brass, woodwinds, and percussion, and retains the Spanish guitar, though not necessarily in the same sections as in the play. However, when the strings appear, they are definitely heard. The film's orchestration also adds a harpsichord and a harp.