| 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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