Word: kingly
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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EAST HADDAM, Conn. — In 1958, lyricist Alan Jay Lerner ’40 suggested to composer Frederick Loewe that they turn T.H. White’s novel about King Arthur, The Once and Future King, into a musical. “You must be crazy,” Loewe replied, “That king was a cuckold.” (A “cuckhold” is a fogeyish term for an adulteress’s husband.) Arthur had lost his wife, Guenevere, to his best friend, Lancelot. “Who the hell cares...
...stomps his feet to trace his line of thought. When he is cursing Merlyn (Herman Petras) for never teaching him how to handle a woman, he twitches in anger. And when he is telling Davie that he wants to be “the wisest, most heroic, most splendid king who ever sat on any throne,” the audience believes...
Although Ruggiero’s staging is masterful, his interpretation of the production, as stated in the playbill, misses the thrust of the show. Ruggiero puts the spotlight on the “layered relationships of King Arthur, Guenevere, and Lancelot rather than…some epic idea.” But the hero of “Camelot” is not Arthur himself; it is his institution: the rule...
Ironically, Ruggiero’s staging, which he hopes will underline the characters’ humanity, stresses the musical’s larger message: Civilization requires restraint. Arthur is a great king not because he feels emotion as all of us do, but because he resists emotion, as few of us do. He resists emotion to build something greater, the rule of law. When he decides to forgive Guenevere, he declares, “This is the time of King Arthur, when violence is not strength and compassion is not weakness.” At the finale, Arthur speaks...
...nearly two eventful and fitful decades - Kennedy, King and Kennedy were shot, Vietnam was fought and lost, Nixon resigned, hostages were taken in Iran - he was America's rock. In an era of big-news giants like Huntley, Brinkley and Chancellor, he had a special bond with his audience, born of an on-air demeanor that was both folksy and knowing, calming but not disinterested...