STAGE WEST: "Camelot" at North Coast Repertory Theatre

Lauren Weinberg as Queen Guenevere in "Camelot."                                            Photo by Aaron Rumley

            Chatting pre-performance with some of the veteran theatergoers at North Coast Rep on Saturday night, I realized that I wasn’t the only one about to see the 64-year-old Lerner & Loewe warhorse “Camelot” for the very first time.
            It’s not that surprising. Productions of the sprawling stage musical about King Arthur, Guenevere and Sir Lancelot typically requires a large performance space and includes a cast of nearly 25. Not everybody’s got the bandwidth for that.
            But as explained to me recently in an interview I did with Jeffrey B. Moss, who’s directing “Camelot” in Solana Beach, this production is a scaled-down but authentic iteration of the show, a concept that is popular among smaller theaters that wish to stage the musical based on T.H. White’s novel “The Once and Future King.”
            At times during the North Coast Rep production, “Camelot” still seems too big for its environs, as when it attempts to simulate battle scenes. On the other hand, and admittedly speaking from a position of having never seen the show on a massive stage, there is an intimacy to this “Camelot” that enables us to connect more closely with the characters.
            I didn’t really know what to expect when the show began. Not only had I never seen “Camelot” staged before, but I don’t recall even seeing the 1967 film adaptation.
            I expected familiar Arthurian figures – got ‘em. I expected period costumes – got ‘em (thanks to fine handiwork by designer Elisa Benzoni). I hoped for live musical accompaniment rather than recorded – got it (a four-piece ensemble led by musical director/pianist Daniel Lincoln).
            What I didn’t expect was that for most of the first act, “Camelot” is light fare and funny. Far from the staid, overly solemn Knights of the Round Table grandiosity I had in the back of my mind. As Arthur (whose childhood nickname was the undignified Wart), Jered McLenigan is happily hapless, not a rock-jawed stalwart king at all, and shyly endearing around the beautiful Guenevere (Lauren Weinberg). The attending knights (Jacob Caltrider, Elias Wygodny and Scott Hurst Jr.) have their comic struts in full vigor, and Jason Heil as Merlyn, complete with overflowing beard, is as amusing as he is wise. I wish there’d been more of Merlyn in the story.
            Of course having seen the spoofing “Monty Python’s Spamalot” multiple times, the quick banter and physical antics of the original “Camelot” don’t come off as that funny. This said, the only issue with the undeniably entertaining goings-on of Act One is that it’s so damned long. An hour and a half to be precise.
            It also requires practically the entire first act to introduce what will be “Camelot’s” chief conflict – the romantic triangle between Arthur, Guenevere and the French warrior Sir Lancelot (Brian Krinsky), a long-locked hunk for whom the queen falls hard after her initial disdain.
            The second act of “Camelot” does include the playful duet between Arthur and Guenevere “What Do the Simple Folk Do?”, but most of the tone is defiant and deadly serious, making it a shorter but thematically very different animal from Act One. It’s much more the “Camelot” I guess I expected, beginning with the musical’s best-known song “If Ever I Would Leave You,” and adding the secondary conflict of Arthur’s scheming son from a previous tryst, Mordred (Nick Apostolina – he’s like a villainous Michael J. Fox).
            I’m a fan of Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner, mainly because of my undying affection for “My Fair Lady.” I would call “Camelot’s” score pleasant and whimsical and often witty (though far less witty than “My Fair Lady’s”), but that’s as far as I’ll go.
            What makes this score sing and soar is the presence of Lauren Weinberg as Guenevere. She is the only woman in the cast. She is also the highlight of every moment she has on stage. What a melodic, ranging, stunning voice. Besides “My Fair Lady,” I also have undying love for Julie Andrews, who played Eliza Doolittle on Broadway and who also played Guenevere in the Great White Way production of “Camelot.” Hearing Weinberg, whether during the jaunty “The Lusty Month of May” or the ardent “Before I Gaze at You Again,” brought Andrews to mind. That’s the highest praise I can give.
            The strongest male voice in the cast is Brian Krinsky’s (Lancelot), though on opening night there seemed to be sound issues during his introductory “C’est Moi” number. (All was fine by the time we got to “If Ever I Would Leave you.”) Krinsky’s pipes are as booming as he is big.
            “Camelot,” even a scaled-down one, is an ambitious undertaking, and North Coast Rep deserves plaudits for doing so, from Moss’ direction to Jill Gorrie Rovatsos’ imaginative choreography to a game cast that gives urgency to a “Golden Age Musical” whose heyday would seem many years in the past.
            I can now cross “Camelot” off my legacy-theater list. Time to rent the movie on Amazon Prime? Pass. I prefer to remember it by Lauren Weinberg and to dream what it must have been like to have heard Julie Andrews.
            “Camelot” runs through June 30 at North Coast Repertory Theatre in Solana Beach.