Canada's great Stratford Shakespeare Festival opened its 2011 season with two gala productions of extravagant works in their magnificent Festival Theater. Both Shakespeare's slapped-together comedy, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Lerner and Loewe's overreaching musical, Camelot, are deeply flawed works, but beloved. Camelot, which I prefer to discuss first, is a monster covering the origins and development and demise and eternal afterlife-in-legend of the whole courtly romance of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Disappointing as the follow-up to Lerner & Loewe's My Fair Lady, it was originally interminable and remains partly incoherent after drastic cutting. And it's a mixture of gorgeous, serviceable and tedious songs.
But Camelot lives on for two reasons. First, it recalls the stirring Arthurian legends and champions the legendary tradition of the triumph [however temporary] of law and order and justice for the oppressed over might and privilege. Second and mostly unrelated -- is the connection made between Camelot and the short, showy reign and subsequent tragedies of John F. Kennedy's presidency. Americans of a certain age and political slant have only to hear the words, "For one brief shining moment" in order to fall apart crying.
Stratford's wholly successful revival does not interfere with these elements and is still the show's inevitable mixture of "Wait! -- it gets better" and "Isn't this thrilling?". But mostly it is a nifty example of what a great theatrical institution can manage with hundreds of world-class artists working in superb production conditions with an ensemble of masterful performers mostly overcast in roles not really as good as they make them. It's overkill, but it's great fun.
Arthur, for instance, is played by Geraint Wyn Davies, a master classical actor who can act, dance, sing, clown and probably could perform a knife-throwing act if required to. On the previous night he was brilliant as Shakespeare's fat clown Falstaff at Stratford. So why not a handsome, stirring King Arthur? He was dashing and very funny and hell, even I teared up a bit when he exhorted the kid to live and tell the tale of Camelot, and started on the final "For one brief, shining moment."
Both the stately, magical Merlin and the lovably silly King Pellinore are played by Canada's amazing Brent Carver, famous at Stratford for his Hamlet and Pirate King and Long Day's Journey Into Night, and in Toronto for his Elephant Man, and in New York and London for Kiss of the Spider Woman -- all of which won him awards. In Camelot, his Merlin has a lovely exit up to the top of the stage and out of sight.
Kaylee Harwood makes a typically glamorous, sweet-voiced Guenevere but plays the queen with a spunky individuality that makes her later almost-tragic final scenes touching. She seems to rise to her interaction with Wyn Davies. The Lancelot is a relative newcomer: Jonathan Winsby is handsome and has a rich baritone voice but doesn't make a particularly distinctive Lancelot, though he works well with Harwood's Guenevere. He says that he is particularly pleased to share the stage with his father who plays Sir Sagramore, whom Lancelot defeats in combat. Fortunately, we don't see Lancelot defeat his father; and Sagramore is not the one Lancelot kills and has to bring back to life onstage. That "miracle" is a good example of how strikingly Alan Brodie's lighting helps tell the story. Debra Hanson's set designs are beyond opulent: some of her huge, gorgeous metallic pieces steal scenes from the actors. And Mara Blumenfeld's costumes are very rich, if not as witty.
I've not found Rick Fox a particularly memorable musical director, but he helps his singers and makes his orchestra not only play well but sound like more than 25. That Camelot that toured interminably first with Richard Burton, then with Richard Harris, then back to Broadway before resuming its tour, and was even televised -- had no choreography worth mentioning. I know of one fine dancer who played its whole four years or more and got so out of shape he had to retire from performing. So this one is far more lively. It is, in fact, a knockout of a show -- something I hadn't expected to say about a Camelot. Much credit goes to Gary Griffin whose previous Evita and West Side Story at Stratford rivaled their Broadway productions.
And Warren Carlyle's choreography has little that looks original -- mostly jumps and pirouettes in character position -- but he gets his actors dancing as well as his dancers and everyone really moving.
