LAGUNA BEACH, Calif. — Set in medieval England, Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s Camelot, one of Broadway’s top musicals of all time, is as fabled as the legends this play is derived from. In 1485, Sir Thomas Malory recounted British myths about the Knights of the Round Table in Le Morte d’Arthur. T.H. White retold these sagas in his 1958 fantasy novel The Once and Future King, which Alan Jay Lerner’s lyrics and book are based on.
In 1960, the Great White Way’s original Camelot premiered at the aptly, monarchically monikered Majestic Theatre with a mind-boggling cast, starring Richard Burton as King Arthur, Julie Andrews as Guenevere, Robert Goulet as Sir Lancelot and Roddy McDowall as Mordred. Directed by the renowned Moss Hart, Camelot won four Tony Awards, including for Burton’s performance. Seven years later, Joshua Logan’s screen adaptation, which snagged three Academy Awards, featured Richard Harris as Arthur, Vanessa Redgrave as Guenevere, Franco Nero as Lancelot, and fresh from his star-making turn in Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 Blow-Up, David Hemmings as the diabolical Mordred.
Laguna Playhouse’s Camelot follows in the foot—or, rather, the Sabaton—steps of this hallowed Arthurian tradition and is a worthy successor to the musical by book writer/lyricist Lerner and composer Loewe, who also bestowed the Britain-set classics My Fair Lady and Brigadoon upon theatergoers.
Like the famed HBO series The Crown, Camelot humanizes the denizens of the court and dramatizes the fact that power, stature, and wealth by themselves won’t make you happy and provide true love. Beneath a suit of armor still beats a human heart, beneath a crown a mind. (Guenevere later confesses to King Arthur that being queen is “a weary load,” and in a duet, they wonder “What Do the Simple Folk Do?”)
Act I opens with Arthur (Jered McLenigan) fretting about his upcoming nuptials to the comely Guenevere (Lauren Weinberg), whom he has never met. Theirs is an arranged marriage which, as Guenevere laments in “The Simple Joys of Maidenhood,” is more for purposes of trade and treaties than anything that has to do with that “crazy little thing called love,” as Queen (to continue the royal references!) put it. Arthur expresses his all-too-human anxieties to Merlyn (Jason Heil), the magician who has been Arthur’s tutor since he was a lad and magically extracted the sword Excalibur from that stone (in one of the most Freudian symbols ever conjured up).
Heil appears Gandalf-like with flowing white hair, beard and robe, but alas, what is arguably this tale’s most fascinating character vanishes all too quickly from the stage. Although being a magician, disappearing acts are to be expected of Merlyn; fortunately, in a double role, Heil returns to the boards as Sir Gareth, one of the gallant Round Table Knights.
Arthur grows and is even allowed to age over the course of this two-act musical. Having stumbled upon kingship when a youth, under Merlyn’s sage tutelage he philosophizes and decides to reorder the framework of medieval fiefdoms and kingdoms, to create a New World Order. Instead of the rule of “might makes right,” Arthur envisions “might for right,” a sort of noblesse oblige, where the powerful use force for good and to protect the powerless. This new vision materializes in the form of an egalitarian round table, as opposed to a hierarchical rectangular table where a ruler sits, literally, at the head. (This Camelot has lots of good props, though properties designer Audrey Casteris has not concocted a round table per se, which is only mentioned in the dialogue.)
With this more benign philosophy, King Arthur attracts noble knights from far and wide, including Lancelot du Lac (Brian Krinsky), who crosses the English Channel from his native France to join forces with the Knights of the Round Table. This leads back to Guenevere’s misgivings expressed earlier in the play, that she has gone straight from “maidenhood” to betrothal to the wedding night, with no time to “play the field” and sexperience other men. Inevitably, attraction grows between the Queen and Sir Lancelot. (Is this a plot spoiler? I mean, the Arthurian legends date all the way back to the 5th or 6th century, so I think this may not be too soon.)
Speaking of extramarital hanky-panky, one of the monarch’s long-ago indiscretions comes back to haunt him in the form of Mordred, as Arthur’s son born out of—way out of—wedlock. For my ducats or florins (or whatever currency they used in medieval England), Nick Apostolina steals the show. This effeminate, illegitimate lad who has heaps of daddy issues on steroids (paging Dr. Freud!) is truly a bastard in every sense of the term. Fed up by the virtues and nobility of the Round Table’s do-gooders, which he sees as so much hypocrisy, Mordred sows discord. No Dudley Do-Right is Mordred, who only adds, literally, more dread to the plot. He has two of the musical’s best songs, “The Seven Deadly Virtues” and the show-stopping “Fie on Goodness,” both performed with panache.
Having said that, the hallmark of a great musical is a magnificently melodious number that makes audience members tap their tootsies and leave the thee-a-tuh humming the strain, and in my humble opine, in this two-act extravaganza, only one song actually hits the mark: The show’s title tune, “Camelot,” heartily well-sung by McLenigan as an Arthur yearning for an ideal of social justice.
Marty Burnett’s complex castle set is a joy to behold, as is costume designer Elisa Benzoni’s apparel. Both components bestow a believable period ambiance upon this production set once upon a time and far, far away. A four-piece band enhances the show with live—very alive—music, likewise, a joy to hear as they accompany the soloists and company. Award-winning veteran director Jeffrey B. Moss has the Merlyn touch in terms of helming this complicated two-and-a-half-hour (with one intermission) musical with lots of moving pieces.
This was the first time I’ve ever seen a stage or screen iteration of Camelot. I quite enjoyed it and suggest theatergoers bring someone they love to enhance and share the experience with. What struck me the most was how Lerner and Loewe craftily encapsulated the reputedly idealistic John F. Kennedy presidency in their medieval England-set musical. Although the artistic collaborators conceived of their work before Kennedy’s White House run, Camelot premiered on Broadway in December 1960, mere weeks after the youthful JFK’s election. The creatives captured the zeitgeist of the New Frontier and then of the Great Society, administrations that launched initiatives including the Peace Corps, the Alliance for Progress, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, far-reaching Civil Rights legislation, and ultimately, the rocket that reached the moon in 1969.
Like King Arthur, Pres. Kennedy tried to appeal to our higher angels, famously imploring us to “ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” The egalitarian Round Table could be viewed as a metaphor for the emerging Civil Rights movement, that sought to give everybody a seat at the table. Arthur endeavored to replace the use of brute force with peace between kingdoms and law.
Camelot also deals a lot with sexual politics, women’s roles in society, and the like. As His Majesty devised his regal realm’s more enlightened civil code, it never seemed to occur to the King to add one measure: Divorce. This simple act could have nonviolently resolved the Guenevere-Lancelot-Arthur triangle without resorting to warfare and burnings at the stake. But, from my 21st-century perch, I digress!
With Mordred lurking like a medieval Oswald (or whoever shot Kennedy), similar to JFK’s hope-filled presidency, Camelot doesn’t end happily ever after. President Kennedy’s all-too-brief reign has been compared by many to the realm and rule depicted in Camelot, where, Lerner wrote:
In short, there’s simply not
A more congenial spot
For happily-ever-aftering than here
In Camelot.
Among those who have reputedly likened the Kennedy years to Arthur’s Camelot are supposedly JFK’s very own Guenevere—no! not Marilyn!—Jacqueline Kennedy. Filmmaker Oliver Stone has made a convincing case that Kennedy possessed a liberal zeal that would have withdrawn the U.S. military presence from Vietnam and ushered in a reform-minded, peaceful period (instead of the chaos that ensued after JFK’s liquidation). Today, with the candidacy of the first woman of color at the top of the ticket of a major party in a presidential race, amongst the heady enthusiasm for Vice President Harris’ joust against a modern-day Mordred, some envision a new age and burst of freedom called “Kamalot.”
Laguna Playhouse presents a transfer production of Camelot from North Coast Repertory Theatre through Aug. 11, Weds. through Fri. at 7:30 p.m.; Sat. at 2:00 and 7:30 p.m.; Sun. at 1:00 and 5:30 p.m., plus performances on Thurs., Aug. 1 at 2:00 p.m. and Tues., Aug. 6 at 7:30 p.m. with no performance Sun., Aug. 4 at 5:30 p.m., at Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Rd., Laguna Beach 92651. Tickets at the company website or call (949) 497-2787.
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