Lancelot serves the lewk, but Aaron Sorkin’s retrofitted ‘Camelot’ misses the magic
South Pacific, The King and I, and My Fair Lady, hopes were high that director Bartlett Sher could pull a rabbit out of a hat by brushing layers of dust off Golden Era favorite Camelot.
However, with a heavily rewritten book by Aaron Sorkin (Being the Ricardos, The West Wing, A Few Good Men) that eschews any magic associated with the musical adaptation of the Arthurian legend, Sher is left with nothing up his sleeve.
The result is Sorkin’s retrofitted play, where mostly incongruous songs with erudite lyrics infrequently pop in. A culinary equivalent would be having a four-course chili dinner with intermittent champagne cocktails — each fine on their own merits, but not when served together.As written in Alan Jay Lerner’s original libretto, Camelot opens with King Arthur (Andrew Burnap) hiding up a tree while he and his kingdom await the arrival of his bride, Guenevere (Phillipa Soo).
Neither Arthur nor his bride-to-be seems too eager for the trip down the aisle — an arranged marriage to prevent a war between England and France.
