Recently, King Arthur held court at the Westgate Hotel, and his round table was square. No matter. Those gathered around it were not knights but local entertainment writers.
The once and future King Arthur is film and television actor Lou Diamond Phillips, who played the King of Siam in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The King and I” 500 times. Phillips makes his debut performance as King Arthur in Lerner and Lowe’s “Camelot” in Los Angeles on Sept. 11 prior to the national tour’s San Diego engagement at Civic Theatre Sept. 25 through 30.
Phillips, who burst into public awareness as Ritchie Valens in Luis Valdez’s 1987 film, “La Bamba,” is a busy movie and television actor, with nearly a dozen projects completed and/or released in 2007.
For example, he plays Special Agent Lars Ewing in “Psych” and Agent Ian Edgerton in “Numb3rs” the latest episode of which, “Pandora’s Box,” aired Aug. 31.
One might think Phillips got his start as a singer in “La Bamba.” Wrong. David Hidalgo of Los Lobos sang the voice of Valens in the film.
“I would not call myself a singer,” Phillips said. “I’m an actor that can carry a tune.”
He was one of those kids told he was tone deaf in high school, but he developed an ear and his voice later, singing in a blues band called The Pipefitters.
The touring production of “Camelot” is a reworking of the original script, adapted by Michael Lerner and co-produced by Liza Lerner, who are Alan Jay Lerner’s son and daughter, respectively, and staged by Glenn Casale.
In addition to Phillips, it stars Rachel DeBenedet as Guenevere and Matt Bogart as Lancelot. Phillips is thrilled.
“They go, ‘Hey, you want to do “Camelot?”‘ and I go, ‘Sounds great!’ Then you read the script and listen to the music again, and it’s overwhelming how really wonderful it is,” he said.
Because he didn’t want to channel his predecessors, he avoided viewing Yul Brynner’s King as well as Richard Harris’ Arthur.
“I want to create whatever I bring to the role from the page.”
Why would a guy who’s not the least bit British play King Arthur, a role that’s been assayed by the likes of Richard Burton (Tony Award 1961), Harris (in the 1967 film) and, in the current tour, by Michael York?
“I’m mostly Filipino and Scot Irish Cherokee on my father’s side,” Phillips said. “There ain’t a role out there that I am genetically justified in playing. [Besides,] I’m the idiot they keep asking to do things like this “¦ I am the face of globalization “” the face of the future is what Luis Valdez said when he cast me in ‘La Bamba.’ Art crosses all sorts of boundaries. There are certain roles you can play. Talent should be the criteria.”
Why seven months as Arthur onstage when he could make more money doing television and film?
“I love the theater,” he said. “Arthur is a man in turmoil. He doesn’t know how to be a king until he meets Guenevere. He’s trying to find a more noble cause for his knights than war. He is driven by high ideals.
“I don’t expect I’ll be bored a single night. It’s a dance you do with 3,000 people who know they’re watching living, breathing people who could fall on their face at any moment and sometimes have. The fact that it is lost, that it is this moment in time, that it’s a shared experience and then goes away with no other record than your memory is actually a fairly romantic thing.”
Every night before the show Phillips skips rope onstage.
He looks at the empty seats and says, “You’re gonna be full soon.”
“Camelot” plays Tuesday, Sept. 25 through Sunday, Sept. 30 (7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday; 7 p.m. Wednesday; 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday; 2 p.m. Saturday; 1 p.m. Sunday) at the Civic Theatre, 3rd and B Streets (1100 Third Ave.) downtown, $19-$67, www.broadwaysd.com or (619) 570-1100 or (619) 220-TIXS.