Don Quixote is a book of about 1,000 pages written over a period of about fifteen years and meant to be read in small installments. Man of La Mancha is a wonderful musical inspired by the book, but written to be played in one act. Thus, while the latter is one of the best musicals of the 20th century, it cannot convey the full force of the original.

The most important difference is the author. In Man of La Mancha, Cervantes himself wrote the manuscript of Don Quixote and identifies himself with the title character. He is Don Quixote. "We are both men of La Mancha." On the other hand, while of course we know Cervantes really wrote the novel himself, he claims otherwise, and he distances himself from the events depicted. His Don Quixote is supposed to be a real person, well known from many other fantastic stories written about him, whose true history has been recorded by the Moor Cide Hamete Benengeli and then produced by Cervantes "[I am Don Quixote's] stepfather", who studies him objectively and does not identify with him. It is Cide Hamete who says, "we two together make one".

Furthermore, in Man in La Mancha, the manuscript was already written when Cervantes landed in jail. In reality, he is supposed to have gotten the idea there.

Other differences worth noting:
In both versions Don Quixote regains his faculties at the end. In Man of La Mancha he is persuaded to attempt another quest, but in Don Quixote he retains his true identity until the end.

The musical frequently combines incidents from the book and rearranges some. In particular, his first sally is alone, he finds the inn and gets dubbed as a Knight, then returns to his village, acquires Sancho as his squire, sets off again, and meets the windmills. In addition, most of the interpolated stories are left out.

We do not meet Dr. Sansón Carrasco until the second part of the book. In it Carrasco makes two attempts to defeat Don Quixote in battle. First, as the Knight of the Mirrors he fails. He succeeds later in Barcelona, this time as The Knight of the White Mood.

Wasserman's Aldonza is actually portrayed and Cervantes claims she is his own invention. The book's Aldonza is only mentioned briefly in passing as a pretty neighboring village girl.

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Revised August 2007
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