GOODTIME CHARLEY Book by Sidney Michaels: Music by Larry Grossman: Lyrics by Hal Hackady Palace Theatre, Broadway - May 31, 1975 (104 perfs) SYNOPSIS (Reprinted from the 1975 album) ACT I Overture Prologue: March 6, 1429. The Hundred Years War is in its 92nd year and heading for all sorts of long-run records. Charles Valois is dreaming about things close to him: kings and queens, cousins and courtiers, estate and castles, treaties and inheritances. It's a nightmare. In his imaginings he sees the interior of a cathedral. Statues of history line the niches. When they come to life and start talking to each other, intrigue begins to sound like an everyday activity and who-does-what-to-whom as tasty as any fanciful French pastry. King Henry V of England has crossed the Channel to conquer France. He tells Mad King Charles VI of France he'd be "crazy to resist… Charles VI has qualified for craziness honours easily - he married Queen Isabella of Bavaria. When Isabella's daughter, Queen Kate gossips about the upcoming battle at Agincourt, Isabella figures she can negotiate that outing into a nice, clean, underhanded you take-this-and-he'll get-that-and-l'll-get-minebecause-I-was-in Troyes-before-you treaty. The problem is she has left Charley, her bastard son, out of the dividends. Pushed around Charley, who is also Kate's brother, Phillip of Burgundy's nephew. Marie's husband (she'd married the Dauphin when he was five years old), Queen Yolande of Sicily's son-in-law. However, the then Pope Yolande's cousin, comes out for Charley's claim to the throne. They all argue, threaten. But Isabella has an answer: Get an archbishop and a general to control Charley, and everyone will be cut in. When Charley wakes from his usual 14-hour sleep, he tells the Archbishop about the dream. "My father went mad, my sister married my worst enemy, my uncle swore to destroy me and my mother declared me a bastard." He also realise the nightmare was all true and he's the only man in France with "an archbishop for a nanny." The General comes in and informs Charley that "still another teen-age milkmaid who thinks she's seen God" is waiting downstairs in the Great Hall. Charley wonders when the "Merlin the Magician" nursery rhyme will come true. In any case, he hopes he'll never have to be king with all those responsibilities. He daydreams of his fondest wish, merely to be a "Good time Charley". In the Great Hall Charley runs into Agnes Sorel who's slept with almost every man in France except him. She's been holding him off until he does something noble for France. The Archbishop reminds Charley that he's come down to test the maid Joan about her claimed divine guidance. They give her the "Pick-out-the-Dauphin" test, a game of hide-and-seek. Charley is the last person anyone would pick out as a prince. Dressed in rags, he gets lost in the palace crowd; the girl must point him out with help only from her saints. Everyone who's tried before has failed. When Joan picks out the Dauphin, all the sceptics are impressed except the Archbishop and the General. Charley's got to come up with a stiffer test. "Tell me my last birthday wish," he says. Joan remarks offhandedly that it was probably, "Please, God, don't let me have to be king" - and she's hit it right, by accident. Joan is all of 17, yet when she asks for an army to lead to lift the siege of Orléans, conquer all the castles of the Loire and go on from there, Charley says, "Give her the army."
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