STAGE REVIEW : ‘CAMELOT’ CONFINED OUTDOORS AT OXY

This year, the Occidental Summer Drama Festival has doubled its ticket prices and budget in order to pay most of its actors--including six Equity members--and erect a more permanent stage at the outdoor Remsen Bird Hillside Theater. Judging from the festival’s “Camelot,” though, the quality has not risen as rapidly as the budget.

In fact, “Camelot” might have been more interesting without the new stage--which reduces the lovely tree-rimmed arena down to the size of a conventional community theater space. Previously, for example, “The Lusty Month of May” might have received a staging as unshackled as its lyrics, thanks to the expanse of the space; here, it seems timid (Danny Michaels choreographed).

Director Gary Davis does use the aisles well. But Dave Gibson’s set looks like a standard-issue, small-budget castle; without the new stage, Gibson could have made more imaginative use of those enormous trees and Jonathan C. Wyman’s lighting.

The cast is able. As young Arthur, Alan Freeman is likably ungainly--perhaps more than he intended on opening night, when he tripped once and scrambled a lyric or two. But he matures convincingly--the second-act beard helps.

Freeman wasn’t quite in lock step with Stephen Gothold’s faraway orchestra on opening night. But his Guenevere, Lisa Robinson, sang with precision and acted with great gusto. This is one perky queen. Stephen Zinnato is almost a carbon copy of the young Robert Goulet, who created his role of Lancelot, and Tom Shelton and Morgan Rusler are properly showy as Pellinore and Mordred, respectively.

“Camelot” plays Friday at 8 p.m., then Aug. 2, 15, 21 and 29--in repertory with “I Do! I Do!,” “Private Lives,” “Arms and the Man” and “The Taming of the Shrew.” The theater is near Coons and Campus roads, in the northeast corner of the Occidental campus in Eagle Rock. Tickets: $9-$12; (213) 259-2772.