“Camelot” and the Art of Adaptation
As a child, I watched the 1967 film Camelot with near-religious fervor. Richard Harris (aka Young Dumbledore) as King Arthur, rocking a medieval bowl cut and blue guyliner while singing about political reform? Merlin, May I! Vanessa Redgrave as Guenevere, decked in sleek furs while being schlepped through the forest and bringing.the.drama? Oui oui, madame! In my daily life, I aspire to the levels of pettiness and raw sexual magnetism that Guenevere exercises when convincing an entire retinue of knights to fight in her name. Mic — or should I say kerchief — dropped. Camelot holds a round-table-sized place in my heart, and the same goes for its catchy, clever songs. I’ll admit that returning to the film as an adult revealed its problematic chauvinist narrative and chaotic plot points… but that didn’t stop me from making my own knightly pilgrimage up to Lincoln Center last month, to check out the newest adaption of Camelot and to see how it would tackle these knotty issues. Revived by veteran musical director Barlett Sher with a brand-new book written by Aaron Sorkin, and starring Philippa Soo, Jordan Donica, and Andrew Burnap, this production promised to impress.
And in my eyes… it did. Sorkin eliminates all references to magic and the supernatural, which coaxes the dragon-studded myths of King Arthur into a refreshingly human realm. Sorkin also emphasizes the timely political themes of the musical by positioning Arthur’s knights as regressive, antiquated, and insecure in their masculinity (they may as well have swapped their visors for MAGA hats). This device establishes tension between the conservative, nationalist court and the progressive, globally-minded order ushered in by the arrival of French nobles Guenevere and Lancelot. The court’s eagerness to vilify both Guenevere and Lancelot in the play’s second act is fueled by xenophobic bias and a fear of change. Sorkin makes substantial changes to the Guenevere character, rendering her a brilliantly tactical political advisor and social advocate. She often nudges Arthur in the direction of his most ground-breaking ideas (including the round table and the notion of “might for right”); embodying the old adage that “behind every great man there is a great woman.” Some aspects of this character revision were more convincing than others. In his review in Vulture, Jackson McHenry writes: “Sorkin has only irregularly been a great writer of women, and he’s reverted to an old white-glove approach to Guenevere, putting her on a pedestal, so it’s to Soo’s credit that she finds a believably conflicted and compelling person to play within his text.” I understand the impulse to redeem Guenevere’s character from Lerner & Loewe’s narrow-minded treatment of her, but Sorkin’s attempts to render her a saint-like, socially-minded intellectual titan often felt more pandering than powerful. The scene in which Guenevere beats Arthur repeatedly in chess, for example, felt thrilling but unnecessary. In recent years, I have relished the artistic works that offer complex, juicy anti-hero roles for its leading ladies (see: Lauren Groff’s novel Matrix, Candice Carty-Williams’s novel Queenie, or Martin McDonagh’s film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri). I believe that this Camelot’s clear feminist aims would have been better served by leaving the Guenevere character with more ambiguity in which to sink her royal teeth. Nevertheless, I felt heartened by the contemporary dialogue that Sorkin supplied, which allowed the Guenevere character a more substantial and comprehensive character arc than she has ever enjoyed previously.
Sorkin also altered Camelot’s central romantic dynamics. As I recall from the 1967 film, Guenevere is reluctant to settle down and intends to run off in search of amorous adventures, but is swept off of her feet by Arthur’s charm and agrees to marry him. She admires and supports Arthur, but is more interested in matters of court intrigue than in Arthur’s high ideals for the future of the kingdom. When Lancelot arrives, Guenevere is initially repulsed by his pride and does her best to humiliate him, but then the two fall madly in love after she witnesses him in a vulnerable moment of religious fervor, sincerity, and grief. She continues to care for Arthur, but her romantic passion is all for Lancelot. Not so in Sorkin’s retelling! When Guenevere and Arthur agree to wed, it is a calculated decision on behalf of their respective nations in order to cement a peace treaty. The two rulers get along, but seem to be under no delusions that theirs is a love match. I found this approach refreshingly realistic, for how likely is it for Guenevere to immediately fall in love with the man she is ordered to marry? This change felt like a pivotal and productive alteration to Camelot’s traditional narrative. But then Sorkin rips the rug out from under the original tale yet again — by having Guenevere and Arthur (secretly) fall in love with one another, on the basis not of erotic passion but of longstanding friendship and mutual respect.
I found these alterations compelling and justifiable, but most reviewers critiqued Sher’s Camelot, citing both the flawed original text and the failures of the adaptation. I agree with some of these complaints: it’s challenging to make Lerner’s old-fashioned lyrics gel with Sorkin’s contemporary prose, and the Mordred / Morgan Le Fay subplot is a mess. However, I disagree with most complaints leveled at the production. For example, in her review for The New Yorker, Helen Shaw describes Camelot as “prone to Yoko-broke-up-the-band sexism.” Yet in Sher’s production, all anti-Guenevere sentiment is not about Guenevere herself, but rather is positioned as a symptom of a misogynist and xenophobic court (just as Ryan Murphy’s TV series Feud situated the Betty Davis and Joan Crawford enmity as a result of patriarchal Hollywood culture). Similarly, critics descried the horror of Lerner’s original lyrics, particularly “Fie on Goodness” in Camelot’s second act. This truly abhorrent song is difficult to pull off and I would have excised it from the show entirely — but given Sorkin’s incisive critique of the knights and their sexist “code of chivalry,” “Fie on Goodness” works to amplify that critique. In fact, rather than seeming antiquated, the song’s nostalgia for an era in which sexual assault was tolerated struck me as terrifyingly prescient, given our former President’s open boasts of sexual assaulting women during his 2016 campaign. But above all, I felt startled by what I found to be an overarching lack of nuance in these critical reviews, which failed to acknowledge Sorkin’s multi-faceted, human reading of the Camelot text.
In mounting my defense of this production and my response to its detractors, there are two aspects of Sher’s Camelot I would like to address. First: its central love triangle. This facet of the adaptation was skewered by every popular review I read, and I found myself surprised by the literal-mindedness of these reviewers. Critics seemed to feel that Guenevere must either be in love with only Arthur, which makes the Lancelot plotline confusing, or the reverse: that she can only be in love with Lancelot. Time Out review reads: “in the most misguided of his edits, Sorkin sabotages the central love triangle at the finale.” Shaw writes that Guenevere “sleeps with Lancelot only because of how much she wants Arthur to love her” given “Sorkin’s plan to make her seem infatuated with Arthur rather than Lancelot.” Emlyn Travis writes in Entertainment Weekly that “a late attempt to rush their romance” between Arthur and Guenevere “falls flat given viewers have watched Guenevere yearn for Lancelot across multiple love songs beforehand.” In his review for The New York Times, Jesse Green claims that “Sorkin cannot solve the riddle of the love triangle connecting Guenevere (Phillipa Soo) to the boyish Arthur (Andrew Burnap) on one side and the hunky Lancelot on the other. The riddle is: When is a triangle a flat line? Because only by rigging up questions of fidelity that make everyone look silly does Lerner’s plot engine turn over at all.” Why, in this complicated world of human heartbreak, do these critics feel that a woman cannot be tragically, painfully in love with two men at once?
I disagree with all of the above readings. I feel that Sorkin nuances the original text, lending texture and depth to a traditionally static love story. In this production, Guenevere loves Arthur and Lancelot, each for different reasons. Each man awakens a different aspect of her being, and each man consequently inspires a different mode of love from her. As someone who has experienced immense heartache as a result of a past Arthur-Guenevere-Lancelot-esque crisis, I feel compelled to defend what I take to be this production’s considerate, nuanced, and touchingly realistic unfolding of its love triangle narrative. If audiences are to interpret these relational dynamics not as the moralistic, clear-cut fabric of a traditional fairy tale, but rather as yet another reflection of the all-too-human ambiguity that Sorkin amplifies in his adaptation, then the show’s treatment of its central triangle is strikingly modern and rich.
Indulge me as I try on Guenevere’s chic 14th-century gown for a moment and award points for Lancelot. Sorkin (cleverly) underscores Guenevere and Lancelot’s shared national identity; in one scene, they exchange heated dialogue in French before the baffled English courtiers. Since Guenevere has left her French homeland for an arranged marriage in a strange English nation, it makes sense that she would feel an affinity for — and familiarity with — Lancelot. Their physical attraction to one another is palpable, and one can hardly discount the manifest physical charms of Lancelot as played by the strapping and serious Jordan Donica. Tall, deep-voiced, reserved, and prone to gazing at Guenevere with looks of deepest longing… it is a wonder that anyone could resist “a man so extraordinaire.” Let’s talk about (medieval) sex, baby! Arthur (played by Andrew Burnap) is self-effacing and charming, but cannot hope to compete with Lancelot’s carnal attractions. Arthur’s character seems to appreciate and respect Guenevere, but he does not declare his love with the tenderness and sincerity that Lancelot does (and let’s face it; as written by Lerner & Loewe, the Guenevere character possesses an ego in need of stroking). What’s more, Guenevere agreed to marry Arthur in the context of international diplomacy and peace-making. Even if she has eventually grown to love Arthur, the act of actively choosing to love another man like Lancelot may feel empowering and essential to her own sense of agency and autonomy. Particularly in Sorkin’s retelling, Guenevere is an exceptionally sharp woman with scant political power of her own. It doesn’t require a stretch of the imagination to imagine why — in a world of staid courtly language, restrictive clothing, and perpetual monitoring — Guenevere would find the act of proactively engaging in illicit behavior not only titillating, but deeply gratifying to her psyche and sense of selfhood.
Now allow me to shift thrones for a moment and award points for Arthur. From their initial meeting in the forest, Guenevere and Arthur seem to share some measure of chemistry and mutual regard, even if that regard is couched in the language of friendship and platonic respect. From the start of their (politically motivated) marriage, Arthur repeatedly defers to Guenevere’s intellect, creativity, and sense of purpose. The young monarchs engage in a number of scintillating conversations about leadership, democracy, literature, and morality; dialogues which seem to excite and enrich them both equally. In Sher’s production, Camelot’s knights and its round table are not Arthur’s brainchildren, but rather the shared, forward-thinking projects of both Arthur and Guenevere as a team. Their shared love of Camelot fuels their connection and advances their intimacy. Arthur and Guenevere enjoy a deep sense of kinship and companionable familiarity, evident in the scenes in which they play chess and sit together reading. Finally, given the structure of the musical and its characterizations, it’s difficult not to fall in love with Arthur — Lerner & Loewe lend him a much richer and sympathetic characterization than they do for Lancelot. Theatrical spectators feel — as Guenevere feels — that Arthur is a man worthy of our loyalty, admiration, and affection.
Given the compelling case that Camelot lays out for each of its fair suitors, I was baffled and disappointed by critics’ lack of imagination when reviewing this production. In matters of courtly love, I find most of our canonized narratives wanting. These tales sing of beauty, longing, and fated ardor, but they make feeble roadmaps for the real, messy, oh-so-human intricacies of love. Guenevere can love Arthur and Lancelot: equally and for entirely different reasons. She can feel plagued by the complexity of these two all-encompassing loves. As to what she truly wants: she might feel just as confused as audiences! In Sher’s production, after Guenevere and Lancelot finally give way to their yearning by indulging in a night of passion, she confesses: “Lance, my feelings for you are not as strong as yours for me.” And this exchange makes sense. I rejoiced at Sorkin’s inclusion of this line, because it undermined — yet again — the notion of a simple and straightforward romantic narrative. Perhaps Guenevere knew her feelings for Lancelot failed to match his, yet she recklessly forged ahead as a result of her passion and curiosity. Or perhaps Guenevere only realized the limits of her feelings for Lancelot after the indiscretion, and the fulfillment of these forbidden wishes merely increased her attraction to Arthur. Or perhaps Guenevere’s character is destined for a life of uncertainty, questioning the truth of her own self-knowledge and her feelings of love for these two men. Who knows?! As for my part, I buy it all and I appreciate it all. To invoke another musical that is deeply invested in questions of princesses, forests, fairy tales, and subverted narratives: Camelot’s love triangle is about “and,” not “or.” I saw Camelot’s complicated love triangle not as a failure but an asset of this latest production.
The second aspect of Sher’s Camelot that deserves attention and praise: its thematic preoccupation with story. Sorkin takes pains to illustrate how King Arthur does not view his own democratic endeavors as perfect or polished or even half-begun: rather, they are the preface to a long, winding sociopolitical narrative that will (hopefully) span centuries. Throughout the play, Arthur labors to build stepping stones to greater equity, justice, and governmental transparency. Arthur cannot and will not accomplish much during his brief reign — he has resigned himself to that fact — but he will try his utmost to repair the injustices of the past and to welcome the reparations and advancements of the future. This view of Camelot — not as a glorious golden era but as an interim period of growth and self-awareness — squares with Sorkin’s realist, down-to-earth treatment of the musical. Moreover, to position Camelot (and therefore Camelot) as a project of revision and adaptation is to augment its metatheatrical themes. Sorkin adapts Camelot just as Arthur adapts Camelot: revising its imperfect project for a new generation’s sensibility by trying to access a narrative that feels more inclusive and less barbaric. Camelot and Camelot are far from perfect, but together they take up the most promising ideas of generations past and attempt to modify them for a more enlightened age.
In this respect, Camelot’s form parallels its content: it provides a complicated example of what the process of revision looks, sounds, and feels like. This production seems to argue that previous dramatic material, however limited, need not be abandoned entirely. Instead, Camelot generates a productive friction between source text and adapted text, in which the friction itself is central to the metatheatrical commentary on the production’s endeavors. At the end of the play, when Camelot is in ruins and Arthur gazes upon the wreckage of his utopian dreams, he encounters a young boy named Tom. Tom has traveled from his far-off village to see Camelot — not because he has met or even seen a knight, but because he has heard stories of Camelot’s commitment to justice and equity. Sitting in the audience, I found myself in tears when Burnap’s Arthur murmured in astonishment: “You came all the way here… because of a story?” For King Arthur and Sir Sorkin are both in the business of wielding story as an essential medium for advancing political change. This production of Camelot examines the myth-making of Camelot. It tries valiantly to parse out what must be cast aside, what might be revitalized, and what ought to endure as the best shining hope for our collective “happily-ever-aftering.” In my view, that quest is a noble one, indeed.
