Camelot Is a Lot

Aaron Sorkin just can’t leave anything up to the audience’s imagination.

- JACKSON MCHENRY

CAMELOT ALWAYS LOOKS better in hindsight. Lerner and Loewe’s musicalization of Arthurian legend first made it to Broadway in 1960 after a rocky out-of-town tryout. In Toronto, Lerner developed an ulcer, and director Moss Hart had a heart attack from which he never fully recovered. By the time they cut it down (from over four hours) and got it to Broadway, reviews were mixed, though ticket sales picked up once Lerner and Loewe showcased a few songs on The Ed Sullivan Show. Camelot ascended into the canon well after that run ended in January 1963, thanks in large part to a Jackie Kennedy interview after her husband’s assassination that conflated Camelot with the Kennedy dynasty and cannily melded JFK’s image with the show’s heroic, democratizing vision of King Arthur. Staging Camelot now means you have to tackle the show as it exists—a somewhat awkward epic with brilliant moments—and address its hazy, nostalgic, one-brief-shining-moment mythos. Enter Aaron Sorkin.