WPCNR GOES TO THE THEATRE. By John F. Bailey. October 2: There are many bright shining moments, buffed, polished and gleaming once more in the new Lerner & Loewe’s Camelot, the first revival of the 1961 icon of a show — first course delicacy on White Plains Performing Arts Center theatrical buffet this season, as WPPAC continues its performing course in great musical theatre.
The Eternal Triangle Begins, Rendered by Robert Cuccioli, (seated) “The Official Leading Man of New York,” as the troubled, hesitant, heroic King Arthur, Her Majesty, the regal Juli Robbins as Queen Guenevere, looking on in disapproval at the boasting Greg Goodbrod as Sir Lancelot when they first meet in WPPAC’s debut production of Camelot, Friday through Sunday. Photos, Courtesy White Plains Performing Arts Center
Camelot could not come to White Plains at a better time. The show with its clever, amusing and intelligent book and songs depicting the ambiguities and resiliency of the best mankind has to give will inspire with the hope it instills. That’s the reason it was a hit the last time people believed in a Presidency, 1961 (when the Camelotian Kennedy administration governed two-1/2 years). You still have three days left to see it, Friday night, Saturday and Sunday this weekend at the WPPAC.
WPPAC engages the imagination by transforming the ever versatile WPPAC stage into King Arthur’s Great Hall, where the audience appears actually in the great hall with banners festooned about the sides of the hall. Through the magic of Thom Weaver’s lighting it turns into enchanted woods, a jousting tournament, castle battlements, and singer-performers who can deliver emotion without crossing into melodrama.
The WPPAC company, developing its reputation as a repertory company attracted about ¾ of a full house for Sunday’s matinee, showing its strategy bringing back tried and true classics of the Broadway past is connecting with a taste for time travel. Theatregoers saw why a great show is always a great show because it stands the test of the times, delivering, as I have written before, timeless truisms that inspire any era.
Camelot is the story of a love triangle between “The Official Leading Man of New York,” Robert Cuccioli, the Tony Nominated (Jekyll & Hyde) star who gave WPPAC hope last season with his house-buster Man of La Mancha; the exquisite regal flame-haired Juli Robbins as Guenevere with a voice as articulated and commanding as fine crystal, and Gregg Goodbrod growing into the role of Lancelot.
The attraction between Ms. Robbins and Goodbrod is apparent and subtlely developed as a real romance is. How the attraction develops, though somewhat preposterous, through Guen or “Jenny” as she is called by Arthur and Lance, detests Lancelot’s conceit when she first meets him. Lancelot performs a divine miracle through some kind of hands-on CPR, that proves to Guenevere he is not all ego.
Goodbrood’s first big moment comes with his hilarious singing resume, “C’est Moi!” , a testimony to his abilities. He bonds with the audience delivering a hearable, comprehensive delivery with gesture and savoirfaire bringing great laughs . At the beginning of Act II he delivers the song that made Robert Goulet a star in the original production.
As he professes he can no longer stand to live in Camelot with Guenevere out of reach, he stops himself and delivers If Ever I Would Leave You with a sweep, an emotion, an intricately sewn tapestry of range that delivers more meaning than Goulet ever put into singing this song. The songs in this show – all of them are not sung in the belt-and-shout style .
While Goulet just belted it, Goodbrood gives the sensitivity, the reality, the pain, and yes, the j’n sais quoi that somehow makes the audience understand why a man would rather be around a woman who inspires him whom he cannot have than not have her in his life at all. In this writer’s opinion the Goulet style simply blasted the song (especially in the hit recording), rather than deliver the intense finesse the song is given in this show.
It takes a great deal for you to take your eye off the regal queen Juli Robbins – here charming knights in The Lusty Month of May. Ms. Robbins intense mesmerzing gaze and Dove Beauty Bar complexion – casts her appreciation on Lancelot demurely, with class and manners, giving plenty of evidence of the smoldering fire for Lancelot within. Here is an actress who plays a queen who is queenly and sings like her namesake with a stately commanding style.
Taking the signature Julie Andrews role (Guenevere was Ms. Andrews follow-up star turn to her never-to-be-forgotten Liza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, acclaimed the greatest musical of all-time), Ms. Robbins has that very British royal inflection in word and song, articulating superbly.
Long experienced on the Camelot National Tour, Ms.Robbins is the radiant sun this production revolves around.
It’s Lonely, Confusing, and Tough to Be the King: Robert Cuccioli captures the king’s confusion and anxiety over loss of queen and pursuit of his ideas with a performance evoking compassion and inspiration.
Guenevere’s King Mr. Cuccioli negotiates the intricate nuances of loving two persons, his wife and his friend Lancelot, channeling his jealousy, and attempting to preserve his idealistic dream for the roundtable. He is a leader trying to do right in a world filled with self-interest (the knights). (Does that sound anything like today’s political scene?) The triangle dynamics work superbly.
Mr. C shows another side here – a committed dedicated powerful Quixote in Man of La Mancha, here he is a confused, diffident King in doubt until the end, but loyal to his two friends and his obligations to his ideas that sometimes as we find in life are always in conflict with what makes us happy. Is that timeless or what?
His first meeting with Guenevere, he carries off brilliantly taking advantage of Ms. Robbins’ not knowing he is the king she is to marry. This banter between them is brilliantly acted by both. He sets the tone with the title song Camelot. Robbins plays a young and lamenting nervous bride singing The Simple Joys of Maidenhood.
Lancelot is introduced to Guenevere by Arthur and Guenevere’s contempt for Lancelot’s self-confidence, to say the least is another throroughly amusing scene highlight by the company’s The Lusty Month of May, and Guenevere’s attempt to take Lancelot down a peg by urging knights of the roudtable to joust him are the beginning of the Lancelot-Guenevere romance. Robbins cajoling of the knights with her rendition of Take Me to the Fair is splendidly timed with appropriate raised eyebrows and wide eyes – any knight would oblige.
The Jousts scene – right out of the Races scene in My Fair Lady – is another suspension of belief carried out by the WPPAC production team.
ACT II things go bad for our conflicted King, Queen and Knight errant.
The evil Mordred, Arthur’s illegitimate son arrives and plots to take over the court. Played by Saum Eskandani, (center, third from left), who played the scheming nephew in How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying on this very same stage. This guy is very good at playing evil, scheming, slimy guys and making them hated and entertaining simultaneously, his Mordred singing The Seven Deadly Virtues is hysterical, followed up by Fie on Goodness when he converts the Knights of the Roundtable above, who reminisce about their looting and whacking, is just great stuff. Mr. Eskandani deserves a sitcom.
In the denoument, Cuccioli and Ms. Robbins deliver a wonderful duet, What Do the Simple Folk Do? In which with each verse, the passion that once was between them almost rises to the surface, but because of outside forces has been forever mooted, an all too familiar theme in everyone’s lives.
But this is not a sad show, even Ms. Robbins lovely farewell to Lancelot after Mordred’s plot exposes their romance, is a positive and uplifting adieu. Her I Loved You Once in Silence warms the heart and tears you up the way Ms. Robbins styles it, in her silky soprano so precise with control and courage and emotion.
Robert Cuccioli’s role Arthur, (played by the tortured Richard Burton in the original), gives brooding and angst worthy of the Burden persona, but more lovable. He is central, moving Arthur through his various stages of shrinking from responsibility, dealing with it, pushing for an ideal, being the “big person” in a situation. His dialogues are soliloquys of doubt, perfectly realisticly rendered.
His How to Handle a Woman is handled just right, completely in keeping with Arthur’s realization he has lost Guenevere but still loves her.
The songs in this show are so encompassing in the way they facet every shade of emotion. Each song is not just entertainment but philosophy, wisdom, truth, all those good things artists try for years (most of them anyway) to portray – crystallizing human existence. (O.K., so I’m a sentimentalist.)
Kudos to the comic relief of Ronald Brown as Merlin and Pellinore – magician and mentor, and errant knight, providing excellent comic relief.
Music is reminiscent of Ferrante & Teicher — the two pianist stars of the 50s — whose style is perfectly matched by two elevated pianos keyboarded by James Bassi and Steven Gross who impeccably lay a splendid “bed” of melody under the voices. I really loved their style and the two should record this sound track – a bold concept in staging by the Musical Director Gross, and an economical one at that, and it works.
Sidney J. Bourgoyne, the director weaves the interaction sensitively. The staging especially the rescue of Guenevere scene with lighting high drama. The costumes use authentic armor. As Brenda Starr, yours truly’s companion remarked, she appreciates minimalist productions because you can concentrate on the performances, not the pyrotechnics.
Another spectator advantage of seeing the classics at WPPAC is that every seat is a box seat. The actors have to act better, they are not saved by distance, and the vibrance and reality or lack thereof is instantly discernable. It is like a private command performance for royalty.The acoustics are impeccable.
Camelot is not sad, ending with a vibrance that send us all out to be “a few great shining drops in the ocean.”
It inspires us to leave the theatre and strive for our own bright and shining moments which is why it is a classic.
Tickets are still available, so go see a classic – it’s always guaranteed at White Plains Performing Arts Center. Tickets, 328-1600 or visit the theatre’s website, and select your seats at www.wppac.com. There are limited seats still available for shows at 8 Friday, 8 Saturday, Sunday at 2 and Sunday at 7.
