Theatre Review: The Stratford Festival’s Camelot

When one thinks of the most successful musicals of the 20th century, one thinks of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Frank Loesser and, of course, the inspired Stephen Sondheim. Lerner and Loewe also teamed together for what is arguably the single, perfect musical of the 1900s, now playing to full houses at the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, My Fair Lady. (When 60 per cent of its book is taken from Bernard Shaw‘s Pygmalion, what can you expect?)

Camelot, a hit in the 1970s, hardly comes close to L&L’s magnificent masterpiece of over a dozen years before, but then again, the writer of its libretto, Alan Jay Lerner, was working with a massive, four-volume “history” based on the probably-non-existent Arthurian era: T.H. White‘s The Once and Future King. How can one edit down such a huge document into a three-hours-or-less musical? Not easily, as history has shown. When it opened at the then-brand-new O’Keefe Centre, now the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts (clearly, cameras and TVs are bigger nowadays than beer), four decades ago, it ran for over four hours and sent many theatre critics staggering to the exits (after hitting the washroom first, of course).

The Stratford Festival — where Camelot will run until Oct. 30, usually to near sell-out crowds — has done a very professional, well-acted and beautifully-sung production, starring the fine Shakespearean actor Geraint Wyn Davies as the once-and-future king, and a superb singer out of the Canadian west, here for her first season: the blessedly-good singer and actor Kaylee Harwood, who makes an excellent Guinevere.

The Broadway-famous director Gary Griffin, who did such an exquisite job with the glorious Bernstein/Sondheim West Side Story two summers ago, knows how to keep a pretty silly show moving beautifully. Mara Blumenfeld‘s costumes and Debra Hanson‘s handsome set, too, must be applauded.

There are oodles of pleasures in this still-too-long show (close to three hours now), including the profoundly gifted Brent Carver playing the dual roles of Merlin the Magician and Pellinore, the aging knight, for all that they are worth. The lyrics of Lerner are witty and even laugh-out-loud: who can resist, or would want to, such brilliant rhymes?

Camelot has much to praise: in addition to the title song, it has a host of memorable tunes like “C’est Moi!” (Lancelot’s hilariously vain introduction of his too-perfect self), “Before I Gaze at You Again," "I Loved You Once in Silence" and, (Canadian-content here) the song that made super-handsome and very-Canadian Robert Goulet a star around the world: "If Ever I would Leave You." How often does one find oneself humming tunes as they come into a theatre?

It is almost impossible to hold back tears when the adulterous, if possibly virginal, affair between Guinevere and the insufferably vain Lancelot brings war and chaos to this too-perfect society: “A law was made a distant moon ago here: / July and August cannot be too hot. / And there’s a legal limit to the snow here / In Camelot.”(Now there is an idea that would get my vote for Canada every winter; I’ve had it with shlepping down to Florida.)

Not a great show, nor even one to be placed in the top dozen of musicals. But at its best — which happens several times over the evening — it is enjoyable, tuneful, moving. And certainly worthy of the giant thrust stage of the The Stratford Festival.

Camelot, The Stratford Festival, 1-800-567-1600

Allan Gould is Post City Magazines’ theatre critic. He has a Ph.D. in english and theatre from York University and has written over 40 books. His writing has appeared in Toronto Life, Chatelaine, en Route, Canadian Business, Good Times and Financial Post. He is married with two children. Aside from his family, his major passions are theatre and film, because they enrich life with pleasure and meaning.

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