Theater Reviews

Nov 25, 2006 - "Camelot," as lovely as it sometimes is, is still stuck with a weak book, and – this time out – gets nothing better than an iffy production

By By Jack Neal

Forty-six years after "Camelot" opened on Broadway's Great White Way the Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musical has made its way to Reno, the World's Biggest Little City.

"Camelot" opened Friday night (11/24/06) before a large Thanksgiving weekend crowd at Reno's Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts for a three-day, five performance run.

Unfortunately, as lovely as it sometimes is, the book still makes or breaks, mostly breaks, this often lovely-to-look-at show making pages of dialogue tedious to deliver and boring to hear. Add to that the mystery of a lonely synthesizer in the pit with an equally lonely and inanimate music director doing nothing more than pushing buttons. Then presto, a full sounding orchestra (if a recording must be used, why not a better one) blasts forth from the speaker system and this touring canned-orchestra "Camelot" sets sail for an evening of "might doesn't make right" dialogue.

Fortunately, two of the show's leads are excellent. Ron Brown is King Arthur and he provides "Camelot" with an unaffected, warm and sometimes poignant performance that wears extremely well. He sings equally as well as he acts and does justice to the inspired songs Lerner and Loewe so masterfully created. As Guenevere, Mollie Vogt-Welch is youthful, elegant and charming. She sings wonderfully and acts marvelously – certainly well enough to give some credence to Guenevere's annoyance with Lancelot's holier-than-thou attitude that blossoms with the speed of light into love. It's an affair that leaves an audience wondering how it happened. Something must be going on backstage.

The Lancelot Guenevere falls for doesn't make sense. The show's Golden Boy Lancelot (Matthew Posner) sports a blond wig worthy of Wagner's Siegfried. Posner's Lancelot has been eating too much pasta to be in the kind of shape to turn Guenevere's head. His understudy, Samuel J. Worden, if he's the chap who has the main solo bit in "Fie On Goodness, " has the looks and demeanor to be a convincing culprit for pushing the royal couple to splitsville. Posner is not a convincing Sir Lancelot.

Nor is M. Erik Michelsen a convincing Merlin or Pellinore, and that hurts almost as much as the Lancelot debacle. Even if he's a lousy ad for same-sex marriage, Geoff Lutz is an excellent Mordred. He's a vicious b_ _ _ _ (rhymes with witch). Because several of the show's knights have been joining Posner for pasta, Lutz's deliciously mincing Mordred isn't given much motivation for making passes in the castle weight room. To be fair, the ensemble portion of the cast, including the aforementioned men, do what they've been asked to do and they do it very well.

Paula Hammons Sloan's choreography is nondescript. Jeffrey Buchsbaum and Paula Hammons Sloan have co-directed. Some of it works. Some of it doesn't. The costumes by Costume World Theatricals are lavish. With the exception of the Tinker Toy looking turrets on either side of the stage, Michael Anania's bus-and-truck sets look grand enough to partially satisfy one's longing for real scenery. Brian Loesch's lighting creates more shadows than tombstones at sunset.

Whoever is in charge of the follow spots made locating actors on stage look as tough as British search lights looking for German aircraft during the London blitz. The on-again, off-again sound system that plagued "Camelot's" finale scene is good for comparison shopping. When a show is amplified, it needn't sound like it. King Arthur could be heard and sounded terrific when the amplification was off.

In spite of it all, the music of Lerner and Loewe is still glorious, the performances of Brown, Vogt-Welch and Luzt are first-rate. Cathleen O'Brien is a solid Lady Anne.

"Camelot" is presented as part of the Broadway Comes to Reno Series. "Camelot" can be seen at the Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts, 100 South Virginia Street, Reno, Nevada, Friday, Nov. 24, at 8 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 25, at 2 and 8 p.m., and Sunday, Nov. 26, at 2 and 7 p.m. Next up for the Broadway Comes to Reno Series: the 2005 Tony Award winning "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" December 12-17, 2006. For information call 775-686-6600.