Man of La Mancha, a not-so-sunny musical, opened to sunshine and to picnicking families of all configurations who came to celebrate summer and theater, a rich combination in this county.

While Marin Shakespeare at Forest Meadows offers up various forms of Shakespeare--this year Oscar Wilde adds his voice to MSC's 2009 playlist--it's the Mountain Play and long-time director James Dunn, who kick start the summer. And even though Dale Wasserman's musical isn't as foot-stomping jolly as in previous years, an excellent ensemble of Marin's best performers provides a winning afternoon of entertainment.

William Elsman (a memorable Salieri in Amadeus at Marin Shakes), has several roles here as his character, Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes, narrates the story of Don Alonzo--the hallucinatory everyman who transforms into the mad tilter-at-windmills knight, Don Quixote. Elsman conquers all three characters by giving them the same impossible dream, one that asserts there is a remedy for everything but death, and that seeing life as it really is, doesn't work for poets and dreamers who change life into what it should be. Elsman brings this affecting and touching belief to every moment; when he sings "Dulcinea," to the barmaid Aldonza (Linda Guardini) we can believe she becomes what he sees.

Guardini's Aldonza is tough and coarse as she delivers "It's All the Same," a cynical take on the kind of men who share her bed (or her table). Wasserman placed her controversial and brutal rape scene downstage on a table; Dunn wisely moves this action offstage so that audiences can get it without viewing it.

Guardini and Elsman are affecting in a final reprise of "Man of La Mancha," their strange love affair ends on a high note.

Randy Nazarian, a regular performer on the mountain, has the choice role of Sancho Panza, loyal second banana to all three of Elsman's Don's. He provides many of the comedic moments in this dark musical, and his answer to why he follows the mad knight, "Because I Like Him," is a showstopper. Later he regales the family of Don Alonzo with a fun bit of "Gossip."

Ray Martin as the Innkeeper who (against his will) knights Don Quixote, and Jennifer Boynton as his irascible wife, lighten up the proceedings.

Michael Cassidy is resolute as part of Don Alonzo's "real" family who want him to give up his foolish quests; he stuns the audience as he transforms into Oz-like Lord of the Mirrors. His costume here is the most striking of Patricia Polen's designs for La Mancha, and her raggle-taggle horses are charming. Dana Cherry and Kristin Lindsay prance and play as they make their horses into dancers.

Polen's choice to costume most of the actors in shades of brown and sand does seem strange since they tend to melt into Ken Rowland's sand-colored set. This fortress-like design offers various acting spaces and an impressive ladder that raises and lowers for spectacular entrances and exits. And, in a typical James Dunn touch, the set features a working windmill.

Debra Chambliss conducts the Mountain Play Orchestra with sounds that ring out over the mountain but never drown out the performers. Melinda Darlington-Bach and Cynthia Pepper choreograph knights in battle in "The Combat," and a sexy "Gypsy Dance," and turn the rousing "Finale," into, well, just that.

Dale Wasserman's book and Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion's music can't begin to tell the tale of Miguel de Cervantes' classic Don Quixote, and in trying to do just that, they give us a musical that plays like a book. By the end of La Mancha the audience may get tired of following the complicated turns of the plot, there are just too many words and not enough music.

Musicals like The Music Man, Fiddler on the Roof or The King and I sent audiences home, relaxed and humming a head full of tunes. Man of La Mancha has one, "The Impossible Dream," since most of the songs were written simply to move the story along.

Audiences can't hum a story. But the mountain experience never changes and an afternoon spent in this magnificent, natural theater, sharing food and drink and participating in one of James Dunn's expertly directed musicals and performed by an enthusiastic group of the Bay Area's finest is a theatrical treat, and one that starts the summer off just right.

Runs Sundays, May 24, 31, June 7, 13 and Saturdays, June 14 and 21 at 1pm. Pre-show entertainment begins at 11am. Cushing Memorial Amphitheatre, Mt. Tamalpais. $40; $25-$30 ages 4-21 and 65+; under 3, free. Info: 415/383-1100 or www.mountainplay.org.

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