It's been hard to get back into the blog groove after my trip. I'm still way behind at work, but I think I may be caught up on sleep finally so here we go.
I went to see Camelot at Arena Stage on Saturday night. I'm a nerd for Arthurian legend, which I don't often admit. I also have a weakness for musicals. Camelot should have been right up my alley, but it just didn't work somehow. Part of it was that the actors spit a lot ( I know they do it so they can project and whatnot, but it's gross), part of it was the terrible fake Scottish accents, part of it was the humans dressed as horses that were straight out of an Anne Rampling novel or an HBO Real Sex special about horse fetishists.
A large part of it was that Mordred was played very, very effeminately and also very punk. Think Robert Smith crossed with Emmett from Queer as Folk. I'm absolutely down for gay boys and punks, and a gay punk Mordred might have worked well in a different production of Camelot, but when all of the other actors were elocuting and projecting and soliloquy-ing, it was very jarring to have Mordred, the play's villain, swan out in head-to-toe pleather and smudged eyeliner. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had started singing Girlfriend in a Coma.
I had a good time anyway. I just like theater best when the production is so compelling that I don't notice all of the little intrusions--a less than true accent, a little spittle.
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