The second opening at this season’s Stratford Festival is the irrepressible Monty Python’s Spamalot. The show has been around for almost twenty years and has been performed around the world. Its reception at the Avon Theatre in Stratford was so uproarious and enthusiastic, it seemed as if everyone in the audience knew and loved the show by heart.
Spamalot does not fit into any one category. It is a spoof or parody of Arthurian England and the search for the Holy Grail but that is only the beginning. It has some intricate and demanding dance routines, and it takes on religion, Broadway, gay and straight marriages, and a host of other subjects with speed, wit and always with music.
It has such a forward impetus that I found it hard to follow at times, but it has one of those almost legendary grips on its audience that people roar, scream and are bound to every move on the stage. A miraculous flow of energy from the stage to the audience and back.
Photo by David Hou.
Forget Lerner and Lowe’s Camelot. Spamalot’s King Arthur (Jonathan Goad), accompanied by his servant Patsy (Eddy Glen), travels on horseback looking for knights for the Round Table. But horses on the stage present insurmountable problems so Patsy bangs two coconuts representing horses’ hooves at various speeds.
The absurdist, hilarious spoofs continue coming. We meet Sir Robin (Trevor
Patt) who is hauling victims of the plague on a cart. Lancelot (Aaron Krohn) wants
to load the sick Not Dead Yet (McKinley Knuckle) on the cart. The latter yells that
he is not dead yet. The hilarious argument ensues until Lancelot bangs Not Dead
Yet on the head with a shovel making sure that he is dead.
King Arthur insists that he is the King of the
Britons by virtue of the Lady of the Lake giving him the sword Excalibur as the
most worthy man to rule Britain. Dennis Galahad (Liam Tobin) and his mother
Mrs. Galahad (Aidan deSalaiz) dispute that claim on modern socialist and
democratic and constitutional principles. Hilarious.
Arthur manages to round up five knights for his
Round Table and, as commanded by God, they are all set out in search of the Holy
Grail. They encounter the nasty French and decide to counterattack using the
ancient Greek ruse of the Trojan Horse. They use a Wooden Rabbit with one small
error – no one is in the rabbit when the French discover it.
Spamalot is no respecter of anyone. The Knights
(never mind who they are), want the show to go to Broadway – the one in
England, not New York. But please no Andrew Lloyd Webber. For Broadway we need
Jews and a something like Fiddler on the Roof. Let’s hear some sample
numbers from it.
This short description of some of the sketches
does not do justice to the speed, acrobatics, the humour and the singing and
dancing by the talented cast. They create energy and carry the audience with
them on a joyful trip. The songs are vigorous, enthusiastic, varied, and
delightful. The characters are pretty dim which makes for easy humour in a show
that mercilessly satirized everything past, present and future, say one
thousand years in the future. Most of the actors play multiple roles with ease.
This unabashed entertainment is directed by
Lezlie Wade and Choreographed by Jesse Robb. More credits below.
In the end, the satire, the parodies, the
spoofs, the songs, the dances, and the acrobatics provide pure fun.
Monty Python’s Spamalot, book and lyrics by Eric Idle, music by John Du Prez and Eric Idle, ripped off from the movie MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL, from the original screenplay by Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin opened on May 31 and will continue until October 28, 2023 at the Avon Theatre, Stratford, Ontario. www.stratfordfestval.ca
James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press. This review appears in the newspaper
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