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| I never really thought about it before | |
| Last Edit: dramedy 05:59 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
| Posted by: dramedy 05:58 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
| In reply to: CAMELOT Surprising mysterious hints in the revised script and direction. I mentioned my observations to a few cast members and staff. They agreed it could be true. - claploudly 05:19 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
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| Usually people like their own countrymen so it makes sense they have history and trying to hide it by unfriendliness. | |
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| re: I never really thought about it before | |
| Posted by: peter3053 07:15 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
| In reply to: I never really thought about it before - dramedy 05:58 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
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| One of the warm-hearted things about the original is how Lancelot admits he is a fanatic, and admits he suffers for it. Indeed, the original is a beautiful parable of how human beings aspire to the very heights, and are let down by their very humanity, their what one might call "fleshly" frailty. It is vital to the parable that Lancelot is as he says he is, up to then pure. His purity enables him to miraculously heal the fallen knight in the joust. Guenevere, who fell in love with Arthur for his marvelous idealism, falls in love with Lancelot for similar reasons: the miracle confirms his superb character. That then, becomes the irony - that Guenevere is attracted to adultery not because of something ugly, but because of something beautiful. That is the painful exquisite tragedy of the piece: as Hamlet said, "the devil may take a pleasing shape...." The agony of the second act is the way that Arthur both promotes the rule of law as being incorruptible, and at the same time lovingly conceals his knowledge of their infidelity (which of course is not just a personal infidelity but, because he is king, is treason.) Arthur is the perfect Christian, therefore: the standard is high, and the compassion is its equal. (By the way, the round table also is a symbol of the Christian value of moral and spiritual equality, which naturally follows from Arthur's idea of equality before the law, also a Christian concept.) Mordred is evil because he hypocritically applies the standard, and cold-bloodedly ignores the compassion. Camelot is one of the most remarkable musicals ever written by Lerner and Loewe or anyone else. It reveals the tragedy of the human condition like no other show I can think of. It has a little unclarity in the book concerning the degree of Guenevere and Lancelot's infidelity, partly due to the need to cut its Wagnerian length during its gestation period; but no more than "Hamlet" (Did Gertrude know or didn't she about the murder?). Camelot also was a meditation on the United Nations. In lines cut during (I think) the Washington try-out, Arthur waxes lyrical to the boy in the final scene about how Merlin told him a day would come when men would join together from around the entire world, in manner such as the Round Table. The United Nations was not so old when Camelot was first written. Interestingly, this is the version of the script - with this discussion - that Kennedy would have seen and so loved in Washington in 1960, and probably the reason he so loved the final song, which he would have seen as a cry for universal peace and love between nations.) I think the use of magic in Camelot is really just there to heighten the world in which the tale takes place, to make it initially fascinating to an audience, so that they pay attention. It is also whimsical, and, God forbid, entertaining. Although I like in the second act the revision made during Harris' tenure - the removal of Morgan Le Fay and replacing her with the brief discussion between Mordred and Arthur where Arthur says it is not possible to be both happy and triumphant - the implication being that feeling triumphant connotes feelings of superiority and victory over another human being, which is anathema to Arthur's beliefs. This leads to Mordred challenging Arthur to stay out in the woods of his own accord, trusting Guenevere and Lancelot's character left alone back at the castle. That, I think, is good dramaturgy - Arthur's idealism versus Mordred's cynicism, and setting up Mordred's chance to trap them. It also prevents the problem of introducing a de facto second act character too late. Of course, all this - and Camelot itself as a show with any value - collapses if Lancelot and Guenevere have been "impure" before coming to Arthur's court. Tell me it's not so. They wouldn't have gotten that wrong. |
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| re: I never really thought about it before | |
| Posted by: lordofspeech 10:43 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
| In reply to: re: I never really thought about it before - peter3053 07:15 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
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| So beautifully put, peter3503. Y’know, Sorkin and Sher probably had some good intentions. They just didn’t get what the show was really about. |
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| re: I never really thought about it before | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 08:13 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
| In reply to: re: I never really thought about it before - peter3053 07:15 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
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| Hey, peter3053. Despite what it says in various places, Kennedy never saw Camelot, and Jacqueline Kennedy never claimed that they saw it. She merely said that he liked listening to the cast recording. The show tried out in Toronto and Boston. I have a script from the first day of rehearsals, and what you describe about the last scene is not in this script. The scene between Tom and Arthur is pretty much what it is in the final version. If anything, it may be a bit shorter. I haven't directly compared the two. Just feeling too lazy to do that right now. It's possible that something was added and then cut, I suppose. |
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| re: I never really thought about it before | |
| Posted by: lordofspeech 10:47 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
| In reply to: re: I never really thought about it before - AlanScott 08:13 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
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| Dear Mr Scott: You have a script for the first day of CAMELOT rehearsals? From back in the day, Burton time? Wow. What a treasure! You are a magical man, Mr Scott. Does anyone or anywhere else have it? Lincoln Center Library. I would love to read that. |
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| re: I never really thought about it before | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 10:56 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
| In reply to: re: I never really thought about it before - lordofspeech 10:47 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
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| It's a copy of M'el Dowd's script. It has the whole quests sequence, among other things. Got it from a very kind friend. These things do get out there sometimes. I should find out if the library has it. If not, I should help them out. | |
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| re: I never really thought about it before | |
| Posted by: lordofspeech 11:08 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
| In reply to: re: I never really thought about it before - AlanScott 10:56 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
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| I would be willing to help pay for it to be photocopied for Lincoln Center (and maybe to have a copy for myself). If I can do that, let me know. Not sure how to exchange addresses here. | |
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| re: I never really thought about it before | |
| Last Edit: peter3053 09:10 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
| Posted by: peter3053 09:08 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
| In reply to: re: I never really thought about it before - AlanScott 08:13 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
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| The Un allusion (as I see it) was definitely there at some point as per audio from the theater at the time, and also used in the Papermill Playhouse revival in (?) 1998 or thereabouts. The only confirmation I have of Kennedy actually seeing it is from, as I recall, Frank Rich's book Ghostlight, who, as I recall, mentions a delay to the start and then turning around and seeing Kennedy slipping into a seat just behind him as the lights went down.... Of course, my memory may be going; it may not have been Rich, but someone tells the story. The words were something like, "In a few hundred years from now, people will find out the world is round, like the table, and perhaps men will sit around this world together as we did at the table and work for peace and right and justice...." Something like that. And I remember thinking instantly of the UN. I think it was Camelot. I think it was me. I think.... |
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| re: I never really thought about it before | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 10:33 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
| In reply to: re: I never really thought about it before - peter3053 09:08 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
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| The line I see in the original Broadway script is Arthur saying to Pellinore, "What we did will be remembered. You'll see, Pelly." Those lines are not actually in the script from the first day of rehearsal. He also tells Tom, before he starts the final reprise, "And for as long as you live, you will remember what I, the King, tell you; and you will do as I command." That's all I see, unless I'm missing something. I didn't go through the whole script. I just looked in the places where I thought such lines might occur. Of course, there is the first scene in which Arthur comes up with the idea for the Round Table. but he says nothing about the world being round or about hundreds of years in the future. As for JFK, I don't have the Rich book, but it simply didn't try out in D.C., where Rich grew up. And the tour didn't get to D.C. till 1964. |
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| re: I never really thought about it before | |
| Posted by: peter3053 01:25 am EDT 04/13/23 | |
| In reply to: re: I never really thought about it before - AlanScott 10:33 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
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| Yes, I never saw it in any script, the published one or the one I used from the liscensors when I produced a school production long ago. But the words were spoken by Burton, and were used in the Papermill revival (I had a friend in that one). I suspect the words were cut in the whole business of cutting the show down along the way. I swear to you with my hand held over a stack of Sondheim CDs (a solemn oath), the words were spoken. Arthur said that Merlin, who lived backwards, had told him of that future vision. |
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| re: I never really thought about it before | |
| Last Edit: AlanScott 01:37 am EDT 04/13/23 | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 01:35 am EDT 04/13/23 | |
| In reply to: re: I never really thought about it before - peter3053 01:25 am EDT 04/13/23 | |
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| Those lines are actually in the script that was licensed by Tams-Witmark (at least in the copy I have) and later by MTI. Thanks for bringing this up! I'm sure I have heard those lines, but I had forgotten. So it seems like perhaps, just perhaps, those lines were added after the opening. |
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| re: I never really thought about it before | |
| Last Edit: PlayWiz 09:31 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
| Posted by: PlayWiz 09:30 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
| In reply to: re: I never really thought about it before - peter3053 09:08 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
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| I'm not sure how much Broadway JFK saw in general or while he was President, but he apparently made headlines for when he saw "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" on the order of "President Kennedy Learns: How to Succeed". I don't think anything like that was documented about "Camelot" other than Jackie saying after his death that they listened to the recording, and he especially liked it and was inspired by it to some extent. | |
| Link | JFK - How to Succeed headline |
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| re: I never really thought about it before | |
| Posted by: EveryLittleChore 09:45 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
| In reply to: re: I never really thought about it before - PlayWiz 09:30 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
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| And to put a final nail in the JFK CAMELOT coffin, Jackie finally confessed that she fabricated the story of hubby's loving the final track, "Don't let it be forgot,..." She just wanted to attribute a noble story to him. | |
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| re: I never really thought about it before | |
| Last Edit: AlanScott 10:34 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 10:34 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
| In reply to: re: I never really thought about it before - EveryLittleChore 09:45 pm EDT 04/12/23 | |
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| Do you know where Jackie said the story was a fabrication? I have read suggestions that the story was something she made up, but not that she said so. | |
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