Reviewed by:

• Xcalibur, The Musical by Stephen Rayne
• Kevin J. Harty

Stage musicals are big business in Korea, where they feature casts and orchestras so large that they would bankrupt Broadway and West End productions, and play to audiences numbering in the thousands. Xcalibur, The Musical is such a production, although Xcalibur had its beginnings in 2014 in Switzerland. In a formula that has proven successful for any number of producers and composers, the show was originally written in English and then translated into German. The Swiss production then toured Germany for two years of fine tuning, after which it was translated back into English and then into Korean for the 2019 Seoul premiere, which attracted more than enthusiastic sold-out audiences once it was announced that the three principal roles would be rotated among leading K-pop performers. The Korean production was subsequently recorded for audio and video distribution, and for streaming on Broadway on Demand in Korean (and Latin!—for the incantations of Merlin and Morgan) with English subtitles, either for free or for a nominal fee.

Medievalism in the form of the stage musical is rare. Spamalot stands in a category all by itself because it is, well, Spamalot. Pippin, despite its lack of any historicity, has its moments. Marco Polo, in several less than memorable musicals, gets to fall unwittingly in love with the daughter of Genghis Khan, with both father and daughter invariably played by non-Asian actors. Nothing is added to the legends of Robin Hood by Twang! or of Joan of Arc by Goodtime Charley. Camelot has not aged well, and has always been problematic, despite any Kennedy-era nostalgia, because of its genre (it is a musical tragedy), and even worse its gender politics (‘How to Handle a Woman’ indeed!). Xcalibur is harmless enough—and its plot is markedly different than that of the original Swiss production, which was entitled Artus-Excalibur, and which told a much more complicated version of the Arthuriad. What may be most interesting about Xcalibur is that it is simply a rare example of a Korean take on the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

Xcalibur avoids one trap that many modern versions of the Arthuriad fall into: it does not seek to tell the whole story of Arthur and his knights, though it does include a significant number of well-known highpoints. It offers the (back)story of the sword in the stone, the founding of the Round Table, the conflict between Arthur and his half-sister Morgan, the betrayal of Lancelot and Guinevere, and an Arthur victorious who saves his country from an invading horde of pagan Saxons—which is, admittedly, more than enough to fill 150 minutes of stage time.

Xcalibur opens in fifth-century Britain on a farm in the west managed by the kindly Ector, who has adopted Arthur from Merlin, along with any number of other boys (the band of brothers who will become the Knights of the Round Table), including Lancelot whom the kindly Ector has rescued from a broken home and an [End Page 77] abusive father. The country is riven within by political divisions though united in its adoption of the Christian faith and threatened from without by pagan Saxons under the leadership of the cruel Wolf, who set about doing what we expect pagan marauders to do. Attacking and sacking a monastery, the Saxons murder the nuns and monks, and take captive Morgan, the daughter of Uther Pendragon who has been imprisoned there since the death of her father. Morgan yearns for her freedom, the throne, and Merlin—not necessarily in that order—and Xcalibur advances a complicated love-hate relationship between Morgan and Merlin. Uther had succumbed to the fire of the dragon—its destructive force—instead of the breath...

审核人：

• Xcalibur，斯蒂芬·雷恩的音乐剧
• 凯文·哈蒂（Kevin J.Harty）

舞台音乐剧在韩国是一项大生意，在那里，他们的演出和乐团如此之大，以至于会使百老汇和西区的演出破产，并吸引成千上万的听众。Xcalibur，音乐剧就是这样的作品，尽管Xcalibur始于2014年在瑞士。该节目最初被用英语编写，然后翻译成德文，其形式被证明对任何数量的制作人和作曲家都是成功的。随后，这部瑞士作品巡回德国进行了为期两年的微调，然后在2019年首尔首映礼上将其翻译成英文，然后翻译成韩文，一旦宣布这三个主要角色将吸引更多的热情观众。在领先的K-pop表演者中轮流旋转。随后录制了该韩国作品，以进行音频和视频分发，并以英文字幕在百老汇点播时以韩语（和拉丁语！为Merlin和Morgan的咒语）以英语字幕（免费或象征性收费）流式传输。

舞台音乐形式的中世纪主义是罕见的。Spamalot本身就属于一个类别，因为它就是Spamalot。尽管缺乏历史性，但皮蓬还是有自己的一生。马可·波罗（Marco Polo）在几部令人难忘的音乐剧中不约而同地爱上了成吉思汗（Genghis Khan）的女儿，父亲和女儿总是由非亚洲演员扮演。Twang的罗宾汉传奇中没有添加任何东西！或Goodtime Charley的“圣女贞德” 。尽管有肯尼迪时代的怀旧之情，但卡梅洛特（Camelot）的年龄还不够好，而且一直存在问题，这是因为卡梅洛特（Camelot）的体裁（这是一场音乐悲剧），甚至其性别政治也更加糟糕（实际上是“如何处理女人”！）。Xcalibur足够无害-它的情节与最初的瑞士作品Artus-Excalibur截然不同，后者讲述的是Arthuriad的复杂得多。Xcalibur可能最有趣的是，它仅仅是韩国人对亚瑟王和圆桌骑士的传说的一个罕见例子。

Xcalibur避免了许多现代版本的Arthuriad陷入的陷阱：尽管它确实包含了许多知名的高点，但它并没有试图讲述Arthur及其骑士的全部故事。它提供了剑在石头上的故事（背景故事），圆桌会议的建立，亚瑟和他的同父异母的妹妹摩根之间的冲突，背叛了兰斯洛特和吉尼弗雷，以及亚瑟的胜利者将他的国家从侵略中解救了出来异教徒撒克逊人大军-诚然，足以满足150分钟的上演时间。

Xcalibur在五世纪的英国开张，位于西部的一个农场，由友好的埃克托（Ector）管理，埃克托（Ector）从梅林（Merlin）收养了亚瑟（Arthur），以及其他许多男孩（将成为圆桌骑士团的兄弟乐队），其中包括兰斯洛特谁好心埃克特已经从一个破碎的家庭和获救[尾页77]辱骂父亲。该国虽然分裂为基督教信仰，但在政治分裂中陷入分裂，在残酷的沃尔夫（Wolf）的领导下，异教徒萨克森（Pax）威胁来自异教徒，撒克逊人开始做我们所期望的异教徒掠夺者所要做的事情。撒克逊人袭击并解雇了一座修道院，杀死了修女和僧侣，并俘虏了乌瑟尔·彭德拉贡（Uther Pendragon）的女儿，后者自父亲去世以来一直被关押，她被俘虏。摩根渴望自由，王位和梅林-不一定按这个顺序-而且Xcalibur推进了摩根与梅林之间复杂的爱恨交加关系。乌瑟尔（Uther）屈服于巨龙之火-它的破坏力-而不是呼吸...