CAMELOT tonight

[Pammylicious]

Posted: 6/6/11 at 10:11am

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/151397-Camelot-Benefit-Concert-With-Jeremy-Irons-Melissa-Errico-James-Barbour-Plays-the-Shubert-June-6

Just got a ticket for tonight's only performance. Anyone going? This will be all sorts of awesome, with Jeremy Irons how can it not be!!!

[CockeyedOptimist2]

Posted: 6/6/11 at 10:16am

I'm planning on stopping by TKTS to see if I can get a ticket later today! Wish I could afford a full-priced ticket!

[Pammylicious]

Posted: 6/6/11 at 10:18am

Cockeved look in your PMs

[South Fl Marc]

Posted: 6/6/11 at 12:46pm

Shouldn't Jeremy Irons be doing Pelinore or Merlin at this point in his life. Why do they always cast Arthur 20 - 30 years too old?

[Eris0303]

Posted: 6/6/11 at 2:24pm

According to the TKTS app on my phone tickets are available for 50% off at the Times Square booth.

[CockeyedOptimist2]

Posted: 6/6/11 at 5:46pm

Yep I got a TKTS ticket for it! I can't wait!

[SNAFU]

Posted: 6/7/11 at 1:16am

LOVED the show! Thought they did a great job for having practically no time. It was so nice hearing the score done live again. BRAVO CHARLOTTE!

Got a chance to chat with the cast at Sardi's afterwards

[CockeyedOptimist2]

Posted: 6/7/11 at 1:33am

I had a great time as well. I loved Melissa and Jeremy Irons. They were wonderful. I was a bit underwhelmed by James Barbour. I thought he did an excellent job with "C'est Moi," but I found his "If Ever I Would Leave You" a bit disappointing (and had been thinking it would be the highlight of the evening). Overall, I enjoyed Brigadoon more last year, but I also prefer that show to Camelot.

[Pammylicious]

Posted: 6/7/11 at 10:11am

Loved the show also. I was enthralled with Jeremy Irons. He was so good for rehearsing it a week. The chorus and orchestra were fascinating also (no piano). It was a magical evening. Camelot is what musical theater is.

[ahhrealmonsters]

Posted: 6/7/11 at 10:54am

How much were the TKTS tickets? I know prices were varied from $100-300. A friend of mine was in the show (supporting role- I honestly don't know who he played). Glad you all enjoyed it.

[CockeyedOptimist2]

Posted: 6/7/11 at 11:06am

My TKTS ticket was $80. I seem to remember the one I bought last year for Brigadoon was $50, but I may be remembering it wrong.

[Pammylicious]

Posted: 6/7/11 at 11:18am

Also loved loved loved that some of the dialogue was updated...like when King Arthur was talking about the creation of the round table and it used phrases like "it's in".

Is there any possibility that this could of been a try out for Jeremy Irons? Maybe a revival is in the works.....Jeremy is just so perfect for the role.

And for the person who said why couldn't they cast a 20 year younger Arthur, remembered this takes place over the course of many years so Arthur does end up

[wonkit]

Posted: 6/7/11 at 12:58pm

Arthur is supposed to be older than Jenny/Lance, after all. He is weighed down by his responsibilities and Jenny is looking to be young and have fun (at least in the early scenes).

[sparrman]

Posted: 6/7/11 at 3:13pm

No, Arthur is not "supposed to be" older than Jenny and Lance. Their ages are unspecified. It's a very poor choice to have Arthur be significantly older than Guenevere and Lancelot, because then it seems like she is dumping Arthur for a younger man, which isn't the point at all.

I figured out once that Camelot takes place over the span of about 12 years. Five years pass between the first and second scenes, and seven years pass during intermission. I cannot remember the specifics of how I deduced this, but I do believe it is specified in the script.

If there's any guide to how old the actor playing Arthur "should be", why not go back to the beginning? Richard Burton was 35, which is just right; young enough to pull off the boyishness of the first scenes, but old enough to have a sense of the scale of tragedy at the end.
Updated On: 6/7/11 at 03:13 PM

[Pammylicious]

Posted: 6/7/11 at 3:20pm

But then again, Arthur father Mordred who is what 20ish, we find this out 3/4 of the way thru the show so there are some years left.

I figured more like a span of 15-20 years......count the time before Jenny when he said to Merlin teach me about marriage and love.....did he find Jenny right after, it was probably a couple of years. I put Arthur at 50 at the end.

[CockeyedOptimist2]

Posted: 6/7/11 at 3:22pm

Where does the intermission usually fall? They didn't perform it with one last night. My guess would be after "Before I Gaze at You Again"?

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 6/7/11 at 3:35pm

It was a very fun show.

Jeremy Irons could even unexpectedly sing, hitting most of his notes--haha. He talked some of it. He can sing more than you expect. He was fine in the role. Those stage Brits can do anything. It turns out that "English" Jeremy is actually part Irish, and he married an Irish wife and bought a castle in Cork, where it turned out by surprise that he had had somewhat distant ancestry.

James Barbour did a lot better than I expected him to in the role. I thought his "If Ever I Would Leave You" was the singing highlight of the evening, quite the baritone.

Melissa Errico was lovely and charming in the role, in fine voice.

Everyone did a good job, and with more than twenty musicians and a chorus of fifty onstage the music was terrific. Some solo bits from the choral singers which were wonderful. The stage looked moonlit, starlit, blue-purple-ish and lovely.

Well done, Irish Rep!

[sparrman]

Posted: 6/7/11 at 4:25pm

Intermission is after the big "Proposition" speech after the knighting ceremony.

Pammylicious, I think you're influenced by having seen Irons! Arthur doesn't have to be any older than 35 at the end of the play, assuming my 12-year span is correct as specified in the script.

Let's say Arthur was 17 when Mordred was conceived, which is quite possible. (We know it was before Arthur became King, which happened when he was 18 or shortly after.) Let's say the first scene happens 6 years later; Arthur is now a boyish 23. Mordred doesn't show up until 12 years after that; he's now 18, and Arthur is 35. And I believe it's pretty clear that Act II all happens within a relatively short span of time, not over several years or anything like that.

This trend of older Arthurs is fairly recent. (Did it start with Goulet?) Again, to look at early precedent, Richard Harris was 37 when he did the movie.

Updated On: 6/8/11 at 04:25 PM

[wonkit]

Posted: 6/7/11 at 8:25pm

sparrman - in the Arthurian legend, Arthur is in fact 16 years older than Lancelot, and becomes king in the year that Lance is born. When they marry, Arthur is 20, Jenny is 17 and Lancelot is 4. Lancelot grows up in France hearing about Arthur and hero worshipping him. The establishment of the Round Table and the quest for the Holy Grail covers decades, and Arthur's reign includes twenty years of peace, so it hard to imagine everything happening in such a short time frame.

The musical may be cast with these parts in any age range they wish, but the original material (and the OBC) put Arthur at a generational disadvantage - he sees himself as a kind of father figure to both Lance and Mordred. Burton aged considerably from the boy climbing trees to the defeated king, and he DID think that Lancelot was a younger rival for Jenny's affection. SO the trend of older Arthurs started at the beginning. And works dramatically, with a fine enough actor in the role of Arthur.

[sparrman]

Posted: 6/7/11 at 9:08pm

Wonkit -- What is your source for "the Arthurian legend"? It being a legend, there is no definitive version, but I'm curious anyway as to what you're regarding as "the legend". Idylls of the King? The Once and Future King? Bottom line is that it's fiction, and so totally open to interpretation. The intentions of Lerner and Loewe can best be discerned through how the original production was cast.

True, Burton was roughly a decade older than Andrews or Goulet, a little more for Andrews and a little less for Goulet. But your statement "the trend of older Arthurs started at the beginning" is only true if by "older" you mean "older than Lance and Jenny". Not "older" as in "elderly".

And even so, Burton was 35 and Irons is 62. He's a senior citizen who is roughly 20 years older than Errico and Barbour. Arthur needs to be positively boyish in the opening scene, and without having seen Irons, I'll wager he wasn't able to pull that off, very fine actor though he is.

I'm not trying to take anything away from Irons, I'm sure he gave a fine reading of the role, and I hope you and everyone who saw him enjoyed it. If it worked for you, that's all that matters. I just think it's a lamentable modern trend to cast old men as Arthur, and one that most decidedly was NOT the idea in the OBC or movie.

The ultimate irony though, is that I now realize the "elderly Arthur" tradition was probably started by Burton himself in the 1980 Broadway revival, when he was 55 (and infirm to boot).


Updated On: 6/7/11 at 09:08 PM

[wonkit]

Posted: 6/7/11 at 10:05pm

Morte d'Arthur by Sir Tomas Mallory is generally considered one of the primary incarnations of the Arthurian "legend", and scholars have actually associated time periods to the story based upon that poem. I believe Lerner and Lowe actually cited The Once and Future King as their inspiration, although it is Disney compared to the older sources.

Burton in the original cast had to use all of his very considerable powers to pull off the younger scenes as he was quite seriously mature at that point, though hardly "elderly." The subsequent revivals with Burton, Harris and Goulet have made an older Arthur seem plausible. I guess I prefer a slightly older Arthur (rather than a contemporary of Jenny and Lance) because it adds to the poignancy but certainly at some point the age difference can get a little creepy.

[sparrman]

Posted: 6/7/11 at 10:35pm

Interesting that concerning the Arthur/Lancelot relationship dynamic, Lerner sort of splits the difference when he has Arthur consider Lance "a man for my brother, a man for my son, a man for my friend". I admit this does imply Arthur is a bit older than Lance, but not I think by a huge amount. Still, his feelings for Jenny are clearly not at all paternal!

[Eris0303]

Posted: 6/7/11 at 11:13pm

PHOTO CALL: Jeremy Irons, Melissa Errico and James Barbour Perform Camelot to Benefit Irish Rep

[Dollypop]

Posted: 6/8/11 at 4:07pm

When Richard Burton revived CAMELOT at Lincoln Center about 20+ years ago, the show was re-written so that it was the older Arthur looking back on the past. Of course it didn't matter how old Arthur was because the night I saw it, Burton was cockeyed drunk and they had to rush the understudy on after "I Wonder What The King Is Doing Tonight?" (Everyone in the audience knew what the king HAD been doing prior to the performance!)

[sparrman]

Posted: 6/8/11 at 4:22pm

Right, the flashback idea came from the movie, and is often used onstage when Arthur is played by an actor "of a certain age".

Cue Forbidden Broadway's "I Wonder What the King Is Drinking Tonight"!