Serenbe stages a muddled ‘Man of La Mancha’

Through April 11. 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Sundays. $25-$30. The Labyrinth at Serenbe, 10950 Hutcheson Ferry Road in Chattahoochee Hills. 770-463-1110, www.serenbeplayhouse.com.

Bottom line: Only moderately effective.

Whatever the artistic pros or cons of this or that particular show, what most distinguishes the work of Serenbe Playhouse is that it’s performed outdoors, in the natural environment of the remote Chattahoochee Hills community (roughly 40 miles south of Atlanta).

Under the creative guidance of Brian Clowdus, who founded the theater in 2010, Serenbe’s earlier stagings include an “Oklahoma!” set around a real barn, with a real horse (and a real surrey with a fringe on top, to boot); a “Hair” conceived as a kind of Woodstock festival; a “Walk in the Woods” and a “Ten Mile Lake” in which the scenery was essentially designed by Mother Nature.

In that respect alone, whatever its other pros and cons, Clowdus’ current rendition of the classic “Man of La Mancha” (book by Dale Wasserman, music by Mitch Leigh, lyrics by Joe Darion) is among the company’s less effective uses of all its space.

Somehow, given that the musical unfolds from a dank prison dungeon during the Spanish Inquisition, the open-air setting inadvertently diminishes from the show’s atmosphere as much as it enhances it. And if you’ve seen any of those previous productions, expecting something similarly special with regard to envisioning the famous windmills in this story, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

Bryant Smith stars as Miguel de Cervantes, the 16th-century “poet of the theater” and author of “Don Quixote,” who’s awaiting his day in court on charges of heresy. As he enacts his as-yet-unpublished manuscript for the other inmates, they join him in the telling of it.

After two runs as Jean Valjean in Aurora’s “Les Miserables” (among several other musicals), there’s no question that Smith is a consummate vocalist. His delivery of Quixote’s emblematic solo, “The Impossible Dream,” is superb. He can act, too, most recently bringing a refreshing nuance to his role as Jud Fry in Serenbe’s “Oklahoma!” last summer.

But Smith's one-note performance in "La Mancha" is a problem, mainly because he's supposed to be playing two characters. The difference between his scenes as the headstrong Cervantes and those as the disillusioned Quixote is negligible.

Director Clowdus doesn’t offer much help, either, in the way of stylistic variations between the story and the story-within-the-story, between “life as it is” and “life as it ought to be.” (Unfamiliar audience members may be at a big loss.) Most oddly, he also miscasts Will Skelton as a much younger and thinner version of the well-known sidekick, Sancho Panza.

The saving grace is Laura Floyd, excellent as the earthy wench Aldonza, who becomes the unlikely "fair maiden" Dulcinea to the dreaming knight errant. A lot of her music here sounds out of her customary range — she's actually a lilting soprano — but she does a rather impressive job, in terms of acting the character, as well as singing in character.

Led by music director Nick Silvestri (on piano), there’s a slightly tinny quality to the five-piece band, which probably needs more strings. Indeed, in one musical highlight, Daniel Burns stands out in the chorus, strumming a lovely guitar during his solo as the Padre, “To Each His Dulcinea.”

While “Man of La Mancha” marks another ambitious undertaking for Serenbe, the final results are decidedly mixed.