One Brief Tarnished Hour

By T.E.K.

CAMELOT Book and Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner; Music by Frederick Loewe

Richard Burton's voice is one of the great wind instruments of the English-speaking stage. Unfortunately, in Camelot, that instrument seems to be just about all he has left to play on or with. To indicate that Burton is trifling with his formidable dramatic talents is to make an ancillary point, since the show itself leads a charmed life. Camelot opened to an unparalleled $3 million advance sale in 1960 on the assumption that after My Fair Lady, Lerner and Loewe were not men but gods. After John F. Kennedy's assassination, the show became a myth. The President's favorite musical was a symbol of the "one brief shining moment" when Washington was supposedly transformed into an Arthurian round table.

There is a not-so-secret lust in the American soul for surrogate royalty. Burton stands at the apex of three convergent lines. Through the role, he has inherited the Kennedy legend. In marrying a Hollywood superstar, he became a consort Arthur to Elizabeth Taylor's hot-copy Guenevere. To this moment, he indisputably speaks the King's English, something that still makes every closet colonial in America tug his forelock. Burton will make Camelot prosper, but even he, with his nimble intelligence, could scarcely impart any logic to the show. The story is a love triangle; yet, the nature of that love is never articulated. Does Queen Guenevere (Christine Ebersole) love King Arthur (Burton) for the sweet reasonableness with which he wishes to foster justice and peace? Does a surge of passion draw her to Lancelot (Richard Muenz), even though he is a charmless prig? Ebersole's Guenevere is closer to marble than to flesh, and, in any event, we never do learn what these three people feel for each other.

There are more awkward juxtapositions. Camelot is sometimes historical pageant, sometimes operetta. The language veers from the chivalric mode to slangy vernacular. Things begin in a comedic vein with the babbling buffoonery of Merlyn (James Valentine) and the blimpish insularity of King Pellinore (Paxton Whitehead), and then turn somber with the threatened burning of Guenevere at the stake.

The annealing grace of the evening is the score, particularly Lerner's witty lyrics. If Ever I Would Leave You, I Loved You Once in Silence and Camelot jettison the ballast of plot to soar into the lambent spheres of melody.

--T.E.K.

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