Wearing His Crown Proudly -- Harrison Relishes His Role As King Arthur In `Camelot,' Which Opens 5Th Avenue's Season

------------------------------- "Camelot" Opens tonight at the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle, and runs Tuesdays-Sundays through March 7 ($19-48; 206-292-ARTS). -------------------------------

As the curtain rises on the 5th Avenue Theatre Company's 10th anniversary season, continuing subscribers are probably hoping for a year of few surprises.

Last season, after all, did pack some unexpected shifts. After numerous postponements, Broadway star Julie Andrews bagged out of the 5th Avenue's presentation of "Victor/Victoria," due to throat problems. Her Broadway understudy took the role here instead, in a show that sorely needed more star power.

Also, an indefinitely delayed new musical, "Easter Parade," was replaced on the schedule by "Two For the Show" - a sort of expanded, extended nightclub act, by "Easter Parade" stars Tommy Tune and Sandy Duncan.

On paper, 1999 looks a lot calmer.

The 5th Avenue schedule begins with a new production of Lerner and Loewe's "Camelot," with Noel Harrison as the stressed-out King Arthur. The next show, a national tour of the Tony Award-winning "Titanic," appears to be on track for its March 24-April 18 slot.

Then comes another local version of "Guys and Dolls" from May 25-June 13 (there was a good one at Issaquah's Village Theatre recently) and a tour of "Footloose" July 21-Aug. 15 - a Broadway spinoff of the popular Kevin Bacon movie-musical, which critics have disparaged but audiences seem to lap up.

Though the recycling of Top 20 evergreen Broadway musicals is getting tiresome in this vicinity, at least the star of "Camelot" gets excited about doing it again - for, Harrison guesses, the 12th or 14th time.

"I did it first 23 years ago, in a dinner theater in Canton, Ohio," he recalls. "But the wonderful thing about it is the writing, which comes mostly from T.H. White's marvelous book, `The Once and Future King.'

"I absolutely love the part of Arthur, who is such an idealist. And I believe every word I have to say in this. I've never felt like I was phoning it in, because I'm not the kind of actor who sets things rigidly or repeats them blindly. I thrive on little bits of improvisation - not in the lines but in the feelings and tone."

Harrison co-stars in the well-known 1960 musical with Broadway veteran Lauri Landry as his Guinevere, and Richard White as his friend and rival Lancelot.

White is well-regarded in these parts for his starring turns in the 5th Avenue's 1990 production of "The Desert Song" and in the Yeston-Kopit musical "Phantom" a season later. And his pipes alone might be familiar, as the voice of Gaston, in the smash Disney animated musical "Beauty and the Beast."

The show's director, Norb Joerder, has almost as lengthy a history with "Camelot" as Harrison. He staged national tours with Robert Goulet (which came to the Paramount Theatre here), and Richard Harris.

Harrison admits it's a lot easier being Arthur in "Camelot" repeatedly, than it's been doing Henry Higgins in numerous stagings of Lerner and Loewe's "My Fair Lady."

"That's always a difficult one because I have to confront the father-son thing head-on," says Harrison, whose parents were original "My Fair Lady" star Rex Harrison and actress Collette Thomas.

But offstage, the younger Harrison has managed to lead a life far different than his dad's. He has parented five children, spent a decade based on a 300-acre farm in Nova Scotia, toured as a folk singer and in a one-man show about Jacques Brel. And he's developed a second career writing screenplays - including a few for a soft-core porn film series, he confides genially.

And every couple of years or so, Harrison gets another call to put on his armor, whip out his sword, and return to that "most congenial spot," the mythical kingdom of "Camelot."

And he's not burned out yet? "Absolutely not," he says with feeling. "Really, I truly do love this."