Word: lancelot
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Lerner's book, based on the novel The Once and Future King by T. H. White, renders the Arthurian legend in humorous, gentle, and somewhat modern style. It traces the history of Camelot from its formation to its breakup on account of Guinevere's attraction for Lancelot, with just the right proportions of boisterousness and pathos...
...music would be the best Boston would hear this season, were it not for the fact that My Fair Lady itself is coming later. Memorable songs abound: "Follow Me," sung by Nimue to a failing Merlyn; "C'est Moi," trumpeted by a self-confident Lancelot; and the gloomy "Guinevere," rendered by the ensemble, dressed in subdued, monkish robes and standing in near-darkness...
...after beginning work on the show last year. A wardrobe mistress' husband was found dead in their New York apartment. The chief electrician was hospitalized with bladder trouble. Actor Burton took on a virus that almost choked off his singing voice, and the traditional "company cold" spread to Sir Lancelot (Robert Goulet), was even worse in Boston than Toronto. A chorus girl ran a needle through her foot onstage. Frederick Loewe, who himself suffered a severe heart attack two years ago, was temporarily felled by influenza. "We are all quitting," said one stage manager. "We will be replaced tomorrow...
Proudly, Lerner points out that he avoided rhyming "Camelot" with "swam a lot" or "Lancelot" with "dance a lot" but he did bring off such a rhyme in My Fair Lady when he lined up "Budapest" and "ruder pest" (it had to be changed after Soviet tanks in 1956 made the line less amusing). At his worst, his pudding is awfully hasty...
Legendary Lancelot. There are other characters-Augustus Pitou, the "King of the One-Night Stands," for whom Office Boy Hart wrote his first play at the rate of one act a night; legendary, spiteful Producer Jed Harris, who received Hart while standing stark naked in his hotel suite. But the greatest of all is probably Playwright George S. Kaufman, legendary Lancelot of the Algonquin Round Table. When Kaufman agreed to collaborate with the unknown young Hart on Once in a Lifetime, there started a gentle comedy of errors almost as funny as the play itself. If Kaufman hated anything...