[quote from Roninjoey:]
"And maybe casting an ugly Lancelot would automatically put a different spin on the character. Someone should try it sometime. I guess you'd have to add references in the script to his ugliness though."
No, you wouldn't. That's the beauty of it. Nothing in the script as Lerner wrote it precludes Lancelot's being ugly.
As for "I Loved You Once in Silence" not moving the plot forward, I would submit that it is not intended to "move the plot forward." That is not the only legitimate function of songs in musicals, and I could give you a list of scores of well-accepted songs in classic musicals that don't "move the plot forward." Consider, for example, the title song in OKLAHOMA! Does that move the plot forward? I don't think it does. We'd better cut it in all future productions. How about "Shipoopi" in THE MUSIC MAN? Zip. We've got to cut it. How about "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face?" Not really. The situation is precisely the same at the end of the song as it is at the beginning. You just know a little more about Higgins' feelings. It doesn't change until the following scene, and while audiences would be justly outraged if you omitted this song, in point of fact you COULD omit it, and it would have no effect on the plot as such. You'd just go directly from the scene between Higgins and Eliza at his mother's house to Higgins' return to his own house and Eliza returning to him as he plays her voice on his gramophone -- exactly as was done in the 1938 film version of PYGMALION, for which that final reunion scene (often erroneously attributed to Lerner) was originally created by George Bernard Shaw.
"I Loved You Once in Silence" is part of a dialogue between Lancelot and Guenevere. In it, she reviews their entire relationship from start to finish and expresses her feelings about it. Well acted, it's a dramatic scene in itself with a beginning, middle, and end.
In the first verse she remembers being secretly attracted to Lancelot and trying to hide her feelings, not realizing he shared them. In the second verse, she identifies with Lancelot and imagines how he must have felt being attracted to her and thinking she would never return his feelings. In the brief "B" section and beginning of the third verse, she sings about how liberating it was when they shared their feelings of love for one another; and in a musically altered conclusion to the final verse, she describes their present unhappiness. True, it doesn't "move the plot" in the sense of fundamentally changing the situation, any more than "Oklahoma!" or "Shipoopi" or "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face," or, for that matter "If Ever I Would Leave You," which to my mind is much more dramatically problematic in its traditional position than "I Loved You Once in Silence" is in its traditional position. It's a lyric ballad intended to evoke sympathy. As with "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face," you could in point of fact remove the song from the scene and the effect would be inconsequential in terms of plot development. Nonetheless, the plot does continue to move during the underscoring between the third verse and the reprise leading up to Mordred's entrance, as Lancelot suggests for the first time that he and Guenevere run away together. They quarrel about it, and then apologetically Lancelot withdraws the suggestion and promises not to mention it again, and not to attempt to continue their relationship. So the affair is at the point of disintegration as Guenevere calls him back for one last embrace and a final reprise. The irony is that if they'd skipped the reprise Lancelot might have slipped out of the room before Mordred's arrival. Of course, part of what is supposed to create dramatic suspense in this scene is the fact that the audience already knows Arthur has been delayed in the forest (voluntarily or involuntarily, depending on the version being used) and that Mordred is on his way back to the castle hoping to catch them in a compromising situation.
Even if one regarded the suggestion of moving "If Ever I Would Leave You" into the "I Loved You Once in Silence" position as legitimate, which on the basis of what I've heard so far I do not, I don't see how it would "move the plot" any more than "I Loved You Once in Silence" or even function significantly differently except to destroy the scene by creating irresolvable conflicts with the dialogue -- unless, of course, the dialogue has been rewritten, which is a completely separate offense. "If Ever ..." is a lyric ballad, too, but instead of reviewing their relationship as it is ending, it says, "I love you, and I will never leave you." So Lance is going to be saying, "I love you and I will never leave you -- by the way, I'm leaving, come with me to Joyous Gard"? And then, "I'm sorry I suggested that, I will never mention it again, and I accept that our relationship is over, goodbye -- by the way, I'm staying, NO, NEVER WILL I LEAVE YOOOOUU --- AT ALL!!!!!!" Sounds a little schizophrenic, doesn't it?
I don't mean to belabor this, and I don't mean for my remarks to prevent anyone who thinks he or she might enjoy seeing CAMELOT with "I Loved You Once in Silence" omitted and "If Ever I Would Leave You" peformed in its place from having that experience and enjoying it if he or she can. As a New York theatre critic aquaintance of mine likes to say, "I'd rather that you disagree with me and have a good time at the show." Nor do I wish to offend those who disagree with me.
Nonetheless, I think this idea sucks, and I hate it, and even if it is truly inspired by some once-expressed original idea or intention of Alan Jay Lerner's, which I regard as far from proven, I still think that the evidence of what he actually wrote in his several different versions of the work must be regarded as controlling unless there is very strong evidence to the contrary. Now, nothing I write here is likely to inspire the director of this new production put these two songs back in their original positions, but I don't admire what he's done, and I regard it as vandalism, plain and simple. Maybe if I get to see this production, I will change my mind, particularly if the changes cause me to see God, attain enlightenment, or have multiple orgasms -- but I don't think so.
I love CAMELOT. Unlike those who have expressed here and elsewhere that they think it's boring, overlong, has too many songs, is too much or not enough like THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING, and/or ought to completely rewritten, I think it's a great play with great songs which hasn't been seen very much in its best version (i.e., the 1980 revision), with the right cast or with intelligent direction -- and by intelligent direction, I mean direction focused on interpreting the play as written, rather than on re-writing it, hacking it to bits, distorting it to satisfy somebody's ego, or making damaging cuts to avoid paying the musicians overtime. It is a long play. It need not be and should not be boring, but as I said in a previous post, I've come to the conclusion that it must be long, and must be allowed to be long -- longer than is now usual. As I've said, I think there should be a sort of "opera house" version, by which I mean essentially that it should follow the 1980 revision, restore all the funny songs (except, of course, the Mordred-Morgan Le Fay duet), and include complete versions of all the scenes and songs used. Then, ideally, cast four bona fide stars in the roles of Arthur, Guenevere, Lancelot, and Mordred, and a genuinely funny comedian as Pellinore, and tell everybody involved to work a lot harder than people normally do to interpret their roles with real depth and to make the show as interesting and entertaining as possible.
People blame this show for being uninteresting. I've seen quite a few productions of it, and my experience has been that a lot of actors and directors make very uninteresting choices with it. Unfortunately, most of the professional models that are available are not very helpful -- but because those bad models exist, I'm afraid the result is that most people who do it don't work very hard to get the dramatic impact out of it, or to think freely about what would make it have the most dramatic impact. And it's very important to do this because CAMELOT is not a play like GUYS AND DOLLS, which is almost automatically entertaining if you just show up and say the lines and sing the songs at the right times. It's more like Shaw's SAINT JOAN, or BELLS ARE RINGING, or DEATH OF A SALESMAN, in that unless certain key roles are played in certain ways, the play cannot work as intended. You've got to really like Willy Loman and understand why other people might have liked him in his heyday. Ella Peterson has to be a very funny comedienne and mimic, and yet truly endearing, beautiful, and a soulful, rather torchy singer, with a hint of something fragile and tragic about her. And you've got to actually believe that grown men would be inspired to follow Joan into battle -- not just on stage, but in real life.
In CAMELOT, you need to feel for all four of the main characters -- Arthur, Guenevere, Lancelot, and Mordred, so that you're pulled in four different directions at the same time. Mordred is of course the antagonist, but the more the audience feels the underlying justice of his claims, the greater the conflict. I've suggested that I think a girlish Guenevere and an ugly, or at least unconceited Lancelot help make the play work. There might be other solutions that would work equally well, but I don't know what they are. The qualities of a great Arthur are harder to articulate, but I think he must be capable of soaring oratory. It is little appreciated how important Burton's voice was to his success in the role. There are actually two "prose arias" in the piece -- one in the first scene with Guenevere, when Arthur explains how he became king, and the other at the end of the first act -- the fully underscored "Resolution," in which he decides to suppress his anger at Lancelot and Guenevere's adultery out of his love for them, and for the greater good. Burton's voice was like a musical instrument. It hypnotized. I do think Michael York has some of the same vocal attributes, and that this might be very good for the role. Perhaps the main thing to remember about Arthur is that the T.H. White-Alan Jay Lerner version that we know so well today that we can remember nothing else was actually a reaction against what was then the stereotypical version of the character, a sort of remote, George Washington-like figurehead. White made him human, insecure, searching, a little silly. In every scene he is thinking very carefully and trying to do the right thing, and in almost his every utterance he is very sincere. The actor who plays him, I think, should be careful not to just rattle off the lines unthinkingly, but to think about them as carefully as Arthur does.
Again: for CAMELOT, you can't rely on the established models and just imitate them as you can with some other plays and roles. Somebody doing a good imitation of Rex Harrison in MY FAIR LADY, Robert Preston in THE MUSIC MAN, Yul Brynner in THE KING AND I, or Angela Lansbury in SWEENEY TODD can be pretty entertaining, but imitating (especially) the CAMELOT movie or HBO video performances just compounds the play's problems.
Sorry, folks, I guess it's another rant. I gotta stop checking this thread. I still want to see it, because I'd like to see Michael York do it, and because I love it so much that I always want to see it, no matter how rotten it is. But I'm not reconciled to the loss of "I Loved You Once in Silence," and I never will be. And if I'm not the target audience for this revival, who in Hell is?
Updated On: 1/20/07 at 07:29 AM
