Camelot (Broadway Version)
by Marty Callner
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Barrie Ingham, James Valentine (II), Meg Bussert, Richard Harris, Richard MuenzDirector: Marty Callner
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 147 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-05-01
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Acorn Media
Movie Reviews of Camelot (Broadway Version)
Movie Review: A Not So Brief and Shining Moment
Summary: 1 Stars
Run away Guinevere, run away! While there may "not be a more congenial spot than Camelot," this Camelot is ruled by a king who is more leche that liege.
As a former Broadway director/choreographer and actor, and one who has directed Camelot as well as seen many productions of it including the original, you can not begin to imagine my utter dismay with this production. From the moment the aging and foppish Richard Harris began prancing about the stage without motivation or apparent direction while mugging to the audience and incessantly twirling his stadium scarf like some amateur stripper twirling a boa, I was appaled. I was not expecting Burton; was only hoping that I might find the King Arthur of the film; but certainly did not expect to find a Richard Harris festooned in undecipherable garb and topped with a blond page boy hair style makimg him appear (and act) more Duke (Patty) than King (Arthur). What Harris lost in appearance and demeanor he totally forfeited in acting and singing. While never all that gifted an actor or singer, what little gift he had has since been given away. . . far, far away.
Meg Bussert's singing was adequate but she seemed unsure of who her character was exactly. Was she the young frightened innocent finding herself in a strange land to marry a man she had never met, or a modern day twenty-something looking for someone, anyone, with whom to "hook-up." We are never quite sure, but this audience member could smell the wood burning beneath the stake during the opening number in which she seemed part Guinevere and part Ado Annie ready to break any moment into a quick rendition of "I'm Just A Girl Who Can't Say No."
There is simply nothing to like about this production of Camelot. The sets are symbolic of nothing; the properties are anachronistic such as the yard lanterns carried in the medieval wedding ceremony; the staging is something you might expect from a director of MTV videos (Oh, that's right, it was directed by an MTV video director!); the choreography is Martha Graham meets Monty Python; the sound is as if it were recorded in a box car; and the film itself is grainey and poorly focused.
Now the performace is not without merit. I am currently using it in both my directing and acting classes at the university where I teach as examples of bad directing and bad acting. It is perfect for that purpose.
Camelot is an under-appreciated Lerner and Loewe show and this production will do nothing to change that. Instead, and while I am loath to recommend film versions of Broadway musicals, buy the film version. It is not totally true to the original and while Richard Harris still stars as Arthur, his boyish good looks come across more as impish rather than lascivious (as should be), and the production is breathtakingly beautiful.
Summary of Camelot (Broadway Version)
Experience Camelot's "one brief, shining moment" as Lerner and Loewe envisioned it-live on a Broadway stage. Working at the top of his talent, Richard Harris heads an all-star cast in one of Broadway's wittiest, most literate musicals, filled with memorable tunes. Recorded at New York's historic Winter Garden Theatre in 1982, this production captures all the immediacy and intimacy of a live performance viewed from the best seat in the house.Idealistic King Arthur longs to create a perfectly principled kingdom, but sees his dream undone by a tragic love triangle involving Queen Guenevere (Meg Bussert) and his best friend Lancelot (Richard Muenz). In this thoroughly engaging Tony®-nominated production, the medieval monarch's vision-a place where "violence is not strength, and compassion is not weakness"-speaks to our time and for all time.
Recommended for family viewing by the National Education Association
DVD SPECIAL FEATURES INCLUDE original Broadway PLAYBILL? (DVD-ROM) and bios of Lerner & Loewe and Richard Harris.
A live-on-stage performance filmed for HBO in 1982, Camelot returns Richard Harris to the role he immortalized on film in 1967. Harris replaced the original King Arthur, Richard Burton, in this revival production as it was on its way to New York's Winter Garden Theatre, which turned out to be Harris' only role on the Broadway stage. Fifteen years later, he's an older and wiser Arthur, a little more world-weary but still with a twinkle in his eye. He's paired with Meg Bussert, whose Guinevere is not as beautiful as Vanessa Redgrave in the film, but a better singer and appropriately younger. Bussert, who was Tony-nominated for her role in Brigadoon the year before, sounds eerily like original Broadway star Julie Andrews at times. Richard Muenz (The Most Happy Fella revival) plays Lancelot, Barrie Ingham plays Pellinore, and Richard Backus is Mordred. Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe's score is still a great classic, and here two songs cut from the movie are restored, "Before I Gaze at You Again" and "The Seven Deadly Virtues," but inexplicably cut is "Then You May Take Me to the Fair." Not surprisingly the production has a more stagebound feel compared to the sumptuous feature film, but it's good to have a more faithful version of the show available on DVD. --David Horiuchi
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