Word: lerner
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Once and Future King, T. H. White managed to darken the theme as gently as the coming of evening. White had 677 pages and Lerner has but three hours. In Camelot, Lerner moves from comedy to tragedy as if he were blowing out a candle. Another problem is that Lerner seems to stop shy of the most tragic moments not only Arthur's death but Guinevere's trial and rescue, which, in the script as it stood last week, was only related in an awkward "standup oratorio." Perhaps L. & L.'s biggest problem is to find a way of telling...
...than many shows in tryout. One prospective first-nighter who declared himself unworried was T. H. White, who will get 1% of the gross, or about $3,000 a month for the life of the show. From his home on the remote Channel island of Alderney, he wrote to Lerner: "For God's sake, forget about me. I want Camelot to succeed as a musical. Put in bubble dancers if you want." To his pen pal Richard Burton he wrote: "I hope it will be borozonic. I will be there on opening night, the old gentleman in the sixth...
Moving the multicolored pavilions of Camelot toward Broadway, Lerner and Loewe last week were in Boston, bumping into the great shades of past tryout seasons, from Babes in Arms to South Pacific. (Richard Rodgers once swore he would never open so much as a can of sardines without going to Boston first.) A uniquely American practice, the road tryout is as formalized as the judicium Dei the ordeal of the Middle Ages. The road ordeal is by rewriting and cutting, by sleepless nights and interminable waiting, by cold coffee and warm highball, by panicky rumor and wild hope. Severely tested...
Still on everyone's mind was the trouble that had very nearly turned Camelot from a musical into a medical. In Toronto, where the show opened six weeks ago, Lerner led off with a bleeding ulcer, was in hospital for ten days. Director Moss Hart followed with a coronary thrombosis (his second), went off to the same hospital, same room, and indefinitely out of Camelot...
...Aggravate & Friend. With Author Lerner, ulcer and all, doubling for sorely missed Director Hart but too busy re-writing to spend much time in the theater Camelot moved forward of its own weight, only slightly trimmed from its original 3 hr. 40 min., while the mood of the cast settled into general uncertainty. Knights were complaining that their chain mail was wearing out and tempers were wearing out too. When a dancer tripped over a piece of scenery last week, Set Designer Smith was heard to snap: "I hope you broke your leg." Novice squires were learning from cynical...