Spamalot: A shared hallucination of The Holy Grail
Full disclosure, I love musical theatre. I like the big sets, the over the top musical numbers, and the opportunity to spell theatre with an ‘re’. I regularly drag Charles to see Broadway shows here in Seattle, but when I saw that Spamalot was coming, I was really excited to take Charles to a show where he would be interested in coming and not just because he is my default date! While we may argue which is better – Meaning of Life or Holy Grail, we both enjoy the Monty Python movies (please note, Holy Grail is better), and were excited to see the musical. We were whelmed and unprepared for the musical spectacular (with lots of sequins and flashing lights) that was Spamalot.
If I had to describe the show, I would say it was as if Eric Idle decided to make a modern day version of Holy Grail, but he asked Mel Brooks to produce it for the stage. Eric Idle kept faithful to the spirit of the movie and included many of the scenes you might think would be difficult for a live production (the Black Knight, and catapulting a cow) – and even included the very cartoonish look of gods feet as he commands Arthur and his knights to look for the holy grail.
While I don’t think it detracts from the show, it does remove the meta plot of the historical education film that was the opening and closing of the original film. A vestige of that still remains as the narrator – a historical professor – introduces the first and 2nd act. What replaces it though, is a new meta plot of instead of walking past the nights who say “ni”, Arthur is commanded to make a Broadway musical. Much hmming and hawwwwwing by the cast is done, with my particular favorite musical number “You won’t succeed on Broadway” (without jews), that really solidified my feeling that this channeled the not quite ghost of Mel Brooks. All this was missing was a “It’s good to be the king” line thrown in there somewhere.
What I didn’t expect walking into this show, was the expanded musical numbers (which is silly since it’s a musical) for plot devices that didn’t really happen in the movie. The Lady in the Lake has two large numbers, (musical songs, not just her boobs), a long cast song in Camelot, and Lancelot making a FANTASTIC argument to the upset father (whose son doesn’t want to wed the ‘huge tracts of land’) and ending up coming out of the closet. While all of these are amusing to watch, a purist who just wants to see what they know from the film, might not enjoy this as much. All in all, I would say it felt like I was hallucinating my own dream that involved The Holy Grail, and spectacular sequined costumes and musical numbers at the same time. (The localization of crowd pandering was a nice touch – the signs for the 12th “knight” in SeaHawks colors, and reference to gay marriage being legal in the state of Washington in 1,000 years)
What i’m saying here is that you should watch this show. It’s not your “purist” Broadway musical – although it is a Best Musical Tony award winner for the 2004-2005 season! If you are local to the Seattle area, Spamalot is at the 5th Ave Theatre through the end of February, and if you are not local, check out the website for the show and see if it is touring near you!
