Spamalot

I haven't been to a Broadway show in years. When I lived in Jersey City I went all the time, as it was easy to get into the city, and I subscribed to several different theaters (most of them were off-Broadway). But a combination of factors has driven me away. The price, of course, I'm reticent to spend over a hundred dollars to see anything, and what Broadway offers is very safe, very bland entertainment. How could they not, given the economic risks entailed? So now almost everything on Broadway is either a revival, something based on a film, or the so-called jukebox musical, which uses music everyone already knows.

Spamalot fits into one of those categories, being based on the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. If you would have told me thirty years ago that the very British, very academic humor of Monty Python would be packing them in I would have thought you were nuts. Being a keen (but not over the moon) Monty Python fan, I finally gave in and went to see the show (I got a discount ticket, of course). I was up in the nose-bleed seats, but had a good view of the stage and with the amplification methods they use these days could hear pretty much everything.

The musical was written by Eric Idle, the Python member who has perhaps the least amount of shame in cashing in on old material. He has done a very smart thing, though. While he has kept much of the film that gives Python-maniacs pleasure, in the second act he pretty much abandons that and instead makes the evening a spoof of Broadway musicals in general. Some of the best stuff is there verbatim--the argument about swallows carrying coconuts, the Black Knight, the Knights Who Say Ni--but some great stuff was jettisoned (I particularly missed the witch trial scene and the Bridge of Death).

Replacing that is some inspired material, though. Idle has made a post-modern musical, full of self-references. Early on Galahad and the Lady of the Lake (who is not a character in the film, but in an attempt to give the musical some femininity she is added here) sing a ballad that is called "This is the Song that Goes Like This" which details what a song that goes like that would be doing in this particular spot in the show. To keep the metamusical theme going, the Lady of the Lake, after being offstage for a good while, storms back in the second act and demands, "What happened to my part?"

The show-stopper may be a rousing number in Act II. The Knights Who Say Ni, after being given a shrubbery (you have to have been there) now demand that the knights of Camelot put on a Broadway show. Sir Robin is enthused, but then realizes they have no chance, because, as he answers musically, to have a Broadway show you have to have Jews. He then leads the company in "You Won't Succeed on Broadway" that's full of Hebrew overtones, in a style that is more Mel Brooks than Cambridge.

Idle also steals from himself, inserting a song from Life of Brian, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" into the mix. It's a crowd-pleaser to be sure, but it just doesn't have the oomph it does when being sung by men who are being crucified.

Since I saw the show well after the original cast was gone, I saw a mixed bag of performers, some known, some not. Jonathan Hadary, a Broadway veteran, was King Arthur and very able. Quite unwittingly I ended up seeing Clay Aiken in his Broadway debut as Sir Robin. It's a curious marketing move--there are Monty Python fans, and there are American Idol fans, and I think there's very little overlap. He was okay, about on a par with a guest-host on Saturday Night Live who is not a comedian, when you think to yourself, he's not so bad. He does offer more musical range to the part than I'm sure it's had before.

Also strong in the cast are Hannah Waddingham as the Lady of the Lake, Christopher Sieber as Galahad, Rick Holmes as Lancelot and a star turn by Tom Deckman, who plays a variety of roles, including "Not Dead Fred" and Herbert, the effete young prince trapped in the tower by his father.

Perhaps the most pleasurable thing about this show, as with the other work of Python, is that they leave no stone unturned for comedy. You'll recall that the film starts with the wrong film, and then credits that are subtitled in Swedish. When you open the program for Spamalot, you get a full set of credits for a musical called Dik Od Triaanenen Fol (Finns Ain't What They Used to Be). When they have you laughing before the curtain even rises you know you're in for a good time.