Like the ideals of peace, justice, and moral integrity which it represents, the 1960 Alan Jay Lerner-Frederick Loewe musical Camelot lives on despite the fact that fate seemed to be against it at its inception. The original production was plagued with problems from the get-go: Director Moss Hart suffered a heart attack before the opening and his duties were taken over by Lerner, the show’s lyricist and book writer, who eventually wound up in the hospital himself. Though the show had a huge advance sale due to its reuniting of several major players from the mega-hit My Fair Lady, including Lerner, Loewe, Hart, and female lead Julie Andrews — not to mention that Richard Burton would be playing King Arthur or that Robert Goulet, a dashing newcomer with a glorious voice, would be Lancelot — it opened to mixed reviews. In fact, the unwieldy Camelot very likely would have shuttered within a few months if (a) several numbers from the musical hadn’t been showcased on The Ed Sullivan Show, resulting in long lines at the box office, and (b) if Hart hadn’t recovered sufficiently in the meantime to return to the production and improve it markedly through cutting and reshaping.
Camelot might best be described as a fabulous mess. Flush with ego from the mind-boggling success of My Fair Lady, the undisciplined Lerner couldn’t establish a consistent tone for the piece, which mixes elements of light comedy, operetta, and heavy drama. But Frederick Loewe’s melodies for such songs as “If Ever I Would Leave You,” “How to Handle a Woman,” and the title song are irresistible. And Lerner’s take on the legend of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table does have several stirring moments, whatever its overall flaws.
It’s a timeless tale, according to Robert Johanson, director-choreographer of a lavish new production of Camelot at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey. “In this day and age, we have our Harry Potters and Dumbledores and Frodos and Gandalfs,” said Johanson last week at a press preview of scenes and numbers from the show. “But when I was growing up, it was definitely King Arthur and Merlyn and this wonderful story. As many of you remember, back in the ’60s, this was the favorite musical of John F. Kennedy. His years were known as the Camelot years, and he did have his brief and shining moment. I had a great affinity for this story as a youth and I’ve carried it with me all my life. It’s one of the greatest tales ever told.”
Johanson promised that Camelot would be “extremely spectacular” at Paper Mill, with “unbelievable sets by Michael Anania and costumes by Tom Heyer.” He also waxed enthusiastic about the cast, and with good reason. Glory Crampton, a Paper Mill favorite, is playing Guenevere, and she will be in great male company: Brent Barrett as Arthur, Matt Bogart as Lancelot, Barrett Foa as Mordred, and George S. Irving doubling in the roles of Merlyn and Pellinore.
“It’s a great part,” says Brent Barrett of Arthur. “It’s so full and rich that I wish we had a little more time to rehearse. But we’ll have seven weeks to perform it — so hopefully, by the end of the run, I’ll have really gotten into it!” Though Barrett is possessed of a warm, powerful, bari-tenor voice that he has used to advantage in such shows as Chicago, Annie Get Your Gun, and Kiss Me, Kate, he reports that Camelot has not been a walk in the park from a vocal standpoint: “I’ve been going through the rehearsal process thinking, ‘How did Richard Burton ever get through this?’ Because Arthur never stops talking, and then he’s got to sing! The thing is, Burton never really sang. He spoke everything. Of course, his voice was so gorgeous, I think you probably just sat back and let it wash over you. It was mesmerizing.”
Matt Bogart has been facing his own challenges in rehearsal — most significantly, Lancelot du Lac’s accent. “I don’t speak French, and I have to sound like a Frenchman who has learned English from Englishmen,” explains Bogart, who was most recently seen as Starbuck in 110 in the Shade at the Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia and in the Sondheim Celebration production of Company at the Kennedy Center. “It’s difficult to do all of that without sounding like Pepe le Pew.” I ask Bogart if he has struggled with the fact that Lancelot is initially presented in the musical as a comically pompous fellow but, later, his role in the plot becomes deadly serious. “We’re trying to keep him as earnest as possible and let the dialogue and the lyrics do the rest,” he replies. “In the first act, Lancelot has so much enthusiasm about the Round Table. Then he finds himself breaking his own rules. He goes through a lot of pain and suffering in not being able to express his love for Guenevere — and then, when he does express it, the whole damn thing falls apart.”
Bogart is happy to hear my comment that the pacing of scenes during the press preview seemed blessedly brisk. “It’s a very long show, as you know,” he understates. “We hope it will be under three hours. Mark Hoebee, who works here at Paper Mill, told me that he did a tour of Camelot for a year and, in the final scene, they made all of the knights stand in a semicircle while Arthur was giving all those speeches. Mark said he started doing his taxes in his head.”
One of the production’s nicest surprises is the fresh characterization of the evil Mordred that is being provided by Barrett Foa, complete with a thick Scottish burr. “It’s fun, and it kind of makes him a little more like Braveheart or something,” says Foa, who is best known for his performance as Jesus in an excellent Off-Broadway production of Godspell a few years back. “Usually, when I’ve seen this show, Mordred is played as effeminate. I think it’s so much more interesting if he’s this punk bastard kid who’s like, ‘I’m the prince! Give me what I deserve!’ If you have a strong Mordred, he’s more of a threat.”
As young as he is, Foa has actually played Mordred twice before. “When I just started out, six or seven years ago, I did it at the New London Barn Playhouse,” he reports. “And then I did at at the Maine State Music Theatre. The first time I played him, he was this totally nelly queen — snakey, lizardy, very affected. The second time, he was a little more like I’m playing him now. I’m trying to make him sexy in a badass way.”
Because of all the tumult that occurred during the gestation of the original production, Camelot is a textual puzzle that requires tricky choices to be made as to which scenes and songs will be performed. Says Foa, “This version has been pieced together very well; all of the important things are in, but they’ve done some cutting within the scenes. There’s a whole candy scene with Morgan le Fey that we put back, called ‘The Persuasion.’ I think it’s going to be pretty cool.
Doubling in the roles of Merlyn and Pellinore in Paper Mill’s Camelot is the veteran George S. Irving — who, amazingly, has never actually seen the show staged. “In my working days, I never went to the theater much because I hated to give up my Sunday nights for the benefits,” Irving explains. But he did have friends involved in the original Broadway production: “I knew Bob Goulet and I knew Moss Hart. While I was in Oklahoma! in 1943, I got drafted. Then the draft board said they didn’t need me, they were full up that month, so I went over to Lady in the Dark; I auditioned for Moss Hart and got a job in the chorus there. I remember that, when they were casting Camelot, my wife, Maria Karnilova, was asked to come in and read for Morgan le Fey. But Moss called her and said, ‘The part isn’t all that much, I don’t think you’d really want it.’ He was a terribly nice man.” (Karnilova, immortal in the musical theater pantheon for having created the roles of Tessie Tura in Gypsy, Hortense in Zorba, and Golde in Fiddler on the Roof, died in 2001 after a long illness. “I always thought she was a better actor than I,” says Irving, “but I never admitted it to her.”)
Though Irving never saw Camelot on stage, he caught up with the 1967 film version just a few weeks ago. “I thought Richard Harris was pretty good in it,” he says. “Oh, them Brits are good. Jesus! I saw A Little Night Music a couple of nights ago [at New York City Opera] and I thought Jeremy Irons and Juliet Stevenson were delectable. To hell with the singing! I mean, who cares? Anybody can sing!” A Tony Award winner for his role of Madame Lucy in Irene, Irving happens to be an excellent singer, as he has reminded us in several recent Paper Mill musicals. “I’ve done about six shows there,” he says. “It’s a world-class theater. I mean, their productions are as good if not better — usually better — than stuff on Broadway.”
Given the excellent cast and top-flight production values ordered up for Paper Mill’s Camelot, this problematic but beloved show seems to be in good hands. “There’s so much in it that’s great, which is why people keep coming back to it,” says Brent Barrett. “It’s a classic. And that last scene is so wonderful — especially right now, with what’s going on in the world. Unfortunately, after thousands of years, we still haven’t learned what we need to learn about co-existence.”
