Let's Not Go There, It's A Silly Place

While things get off to an expected silly start in Monty Python's Spamalot, I was still waiting to pee my pants by the end of Act One. This new Broadway musical (based on the very funny film Monty Python and the Holy Grail) which has just opened and is supposedly sold out through October is landing like a big giant Trojan Rabbit...it's all big and showy, but there isn't much on the inside except some stale air. Between trying to ignore audience members speaking along with the show as if it were Rocky Horror and trying to stretch your legs in the extremely cramped seats, it was hard to enjoy a show that I was admittedly expecting too much from.

Things do get off to a rollicking start (and I'm warning you now, there are plenty of spoilers below) as the voice of Eric Idle tells us to let our cell phones and pagers ring all we like, but to remember there are knights on stage carrying deadly weapons. An historian then comes on stage to set the scene in England's Middle Ages. The first number arrives right after this as some cast members have obviously confused England with Finland and they present us with "Fisch Schlapping Song". And anyone who knows Python will know this bit. Once the historian corrects matters, we get to meet King Arthur (Tim Curry) and his servant Patsy (Michael McGrath) as they come clopping across the stage with their requisite coconuts in place of live horses. At the Mud Castle we get "King Arthur's Song" (which is pompous in it's announcement of "I'm Arthur! King of the Britons!", yet I'm still humming it) and we get the whole discussion of the air speed velocity of swallows before we change locations.

At the Plague Village, we meet the man in the film known as The Dead Collector, but here, even though he's dressed the same, he's actually Sir Robin (David Hyde Pierce). And we not only get the requisite "Bring Out Your Dead" bit from the film, but we also meet Sir Lancelot (Hank Azaria) who is bringing out his dead friend known as Not Dead Fred to join in with all the plague victims in "I Am Not Yet Dead", a funny...but unmemorable song. Both Robin and Lancelot then run off to join Arthur's Merry Men.

Arthur continues his quest for men to join him as he comes across Dennis Galahad (Christopher Seiber) and his mother. Once the scene from the film is out of the way, we meet the first true new character for the stage in The Lady of the Lake (Sara Ramirez). She rises from the stage with her "Laker Girls" for the unmemorable number entitled "Come With Me" in which she tries to convince Galahad that she's not just some "watery tart"...but luckily this is quickly followed up by what is not only the funniest song in the show, but what could be the funniest song in any show EVER!

"The Song That Goes Like This" is the typical romantic ballad that tends to drop smack in the middle of any Broadway musical...except this one knows what it is. Ramirez and Seiber poke fun at every lyrical convention that has propped up every mediocre musical of the last three decades. From odd key changes to the song going on forever, these lyrics (as well as the fog enshrouded boat and dangling chandelier that come with it) are worth the price of admission. Of course, the song doesn't actually add anything to what little plot there is.

Sir Bedevere (Steve Rosen) gets short shrift and barely an intro before the five knights launch into "All For One" which just seems to be nonsensical repetition in addition to being the motto of "The Three Musketeers". Luckily, we then arrive at Camelot and get a big budget, over blown version of the song from the film (which is where the show's title comes from as the knights of Camelot "eat ham and jam and spamalot"). Luckily, this bit is as funny as it's ever been and keeps the show's energy up.

Then we get to see the feet of G-d as he (John Cleese's voice) tells them to seek the Holy Grail. The Lady of the Lake then inspires the group with "Find Your Grail" which may be as close to a message as this show may ever get (we apparently each have our own that we seek...metaphorically speaking). Act One ends with the Knights running away from the French Castle after that whole scene (including catapulted cow) gets re-enacted onstage.

Act Two opens in a very expensive forest (we're told this both in the program and by the historian) and the knights are all separated on their own quests for the Grail. After meeting the Knights of Ni, Patsy cheers Arthur up with "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life"...stolen from Monty Python's Life of Brian. Luckily, it's well done.

"Brave Sir Robin" (yes, we get that song from the original film as well...and it's still funny) gets scared off by the Black Knight and then Arthur meets up with said knight and dispatches him in the same way as he does in the film (I won't spoil how they cut off all his limbs, but it is rather clever and uses a great, but cheap joke as misdirection). After wanting a shrubbery, the Knights of Ni want Arthur to put on a Broadway musical, but Robin has to explain why "You Won't Succeed on Broadway" which is easily the second best song of the show. Apparently you absolutely must have a Jew...and then they re-enact the bottle dance from Fiddler on the Roof using Grails instead of bottles.

Immediately after this, the Lady of the Lake storms on stage for "The Diva's Lament" in which she complains of having nothing to do so far in Act Two and its almost over. The show then moves right into the whole Swamp Castle set piece from the film in which Lancelot rescues Prince Herbert from his father. Prince Herbert is still more interested in singing than marrying a princess and he gets two songs "Where Are You" in which he pines to be rescued and "Here Are You" after Lancelot rescues him. We're then subjected to the answer of Lancelot's sexuality (which I didn't realize was a question) in "His Name is Lancelot"...a number that looks like it was written to parody The Boy From Oz but since that show's gone it just wasn't as timely.

The scene returns to Arthur who sings "I'm All Alone" with his faithful servant Patsy at his side (it's a one note joke that goes on a bit long for a song...we get it, he's not really alone). Then the Lady of the Lake appears for a reprise of "The Song That Goes Like This" with Arthur so they can kiss. The knights then regroup and encounter Tim the Enchanter and the Killer Rabbit before actually finding the Grail (BIG SPOILER....if you can purchase your tickets to include seat A101). And then, since this IS a musical-comedy, the show ends with a wedding (or two if you count Lancelot and Herbert) and a medley of most of the previous songs before curtain calls and an audience sing-a-long version of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life".

Monty Python's Spamalot is a fun show, don't get me wrong, but it's also a very fluffy show. It's all style, no substance. What was cutting edge comedy in the mid 70s seems quaint and stale. Almost the entire film is represented on stage in odd ways and the stuff that is missing will leave you asking why its missing. The cast is having fun doing the show and the audience is enjoying watching it...and yet there should have been more.

If you're looking for hysterically funny musical comedy current running on Broadway I'd say check out Avenue Q and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels before trying to hunt down tickets for this.

That's all for today. Sorry to disappoint.

Be seeing you.

A Night At The Opera

So I married an opera lover...

One would think that with my love of musical theater it would just be a step across the line to the enjoyment of opera. However, one would be wrong...mostly...

I had never actually been to an opera before Tash took me to see a friend of ours in some obscure piece by Mozart (or was it Beethoven...I forget the title...It was The Rape (or Adbuction) of Someone (or Something) I think). Anyway...it was interesting, but not something that I was dying to see again (at least not that piece).

But since I love my wife more than anything, how could I deny her tickets to 5th row center at the Metropolitan Opera when they came our way? I couldn't, so I didn't. At least this time it would be a story I knew well enough to follow and get excited about.

Samson Et Delila is a French opera based on the Biblical story of Samson and Delila by Camille Saint-Saens. If one didn't know the story going in and didn't speak French, you'd be rather confused...which I was anyway, in spite of the neat screens on the back of the chair in front that gave English titles for the lyrics.

I really didn't know what to expect going into this. All my knowledge of opera has come from movies where its presented as this larger than life spectacle with clowns and animals (not all of them obviously, but you get the idea). While clowns have no place in the Bible (you may make your own joke now), animals are abundant. So I thought maybe we'd get to see something grand. We didn't...we got to see something weird.

When the curtain went up we were presented with a scrim that looked like pages torn from a book written in Hebrew and strewn about. as the lights came up and you could see through the scrim, we got to meet the chorus playing the Isrealites. I immediately thought these folks were a few blocks too far north as they looked like that had wandered in from Fiddler on the Roof. These Jews weren't dressed like they were wandering around the desert as slaves for years, these folks looked like they were waiting for Yenta the Matchmaker to lead them out of Annatevka.

Okay...so I can live with this. It's like watching Shakespeare done in modern times or something like that. And then we meet the Philistines and I have the same reaction. Except these guys walked off the stage of The Lion King. Men in skimpy loin cloths (I see less butt crack here at the house when the plumers are working), painted red and having long fingers parading around and corraling the Russian Jews was indeed a very odd sight. And yet it got weirder.

We then get to meet Delila as she comes out from the corn field??? A neat trick of perspective views, this was yet another oddity in what was to be a long (over 3 hours) night of them. Okay. They weren't corn fields, but the "plants" growing slightly out of the upstage area (which raked back down and gave something of a diminishing horizon look) looked really out of place. But then again, so did the casts of two Broadway musicals that had hijaked the opera singers.

Act Two is set outside Delila's home and Act Three is set in the Philistine Temple. Both sets looked like they were leftovers from the Star Trek episode "Amok Time". By the time Act Two started, I had pretty much given up on trying to appreciate this bizarre and minimalist opera and decided to concentrate on following the story.

Unfortunately, I don't think it's easy to follow whether you know the Biblical version, love opera or speak French. Sure, we know that Samson's secret is his hair...but no one seems to mention that, so it's kind of odd when Delila finally cuts it off at the end of Act Two. There's also the strangeness that bridges the first two acts. Samson leaves his people to be with Delila at the end of Act One, but at the start of Act Two she's bitching about how he has yet to show up and she's gonna get her revenge on him (or something to that effect).

There were a few things I did enjoy about this experience (aside from being with my wife and seeing some friends)...the singing was AMAZING! And while the weirdness of the actual production was not what I was expecting, I did find it all to be interesting choices.

Tash has told me that we won't be seeing another opera until we get the chance for a good production of The Magic Flute. At the rate we're going, it may be around Malcolm's bar mitzvah.

Next week...we get to see my kind of show...Spamalot.

Until then...be seeing you.

A Dirty Rotten Wonderful Show

These days, it seems that looking at the Broadway theater listings is like browsing the CD and DVD ailes at Tower Records. The musicals are all either compliations of songs from a famous artist or group that are linked together by the thinnest plot or musical makeovers of old movies.
The new musical Dirty Rotten Scoundrels falls into the latter category and while it's an odd choice to make a musical of, the finished product works very well in most aspects. (And as an aside, I'd like to point out it's actually a musical based on a movie that was a remake of another movie called Bedtime Story)

If you don't know the film, the story revolves around two con men. Lawrence Jameson (here played by John lithgow...it was Michael Caine in the film, David Niven in the original film) is an older kinder con man who is living off the money he takes from women passing through his current home town of Beaumont Sur Mer on the French Riviera. Into town rolls Freddie Benson (Norbert Leo Butz here, Steve Martin in the film, Marlon Brando in the original film), a younger and more crass con man who winds up asking to be taught the big game by a master. After a few adventures together, the two men wind up making a bet over who can take a young woman (here its Sherie Renee Scott, in the 1988 film it was Glenn Headley and in the 1964 film it was Shirley Jones) for $50,000 first; loser leaves town. It's an odd plot for a musical, especially one that seems to be very aware of itself being a theatrical piece. But it all seems to work rather well.

The show starts off with Jameson and his partner in crime Police Chief Andre (Gregory Jbara) singing about how a con artist should always "Give Them What They Want". It's a great mood setter. Next, we hear from one of Jameson's marks as Muriel Eubanks (played by the wonderfully underused Joanna Gleason...and it was Fanny in the movie...changed for some odd reason...as I think Fanny's funnier) sings about "What Was A Woman To Do?". She is eventually joined by more of Jameson's marks (including one of the usherettes in the audience...in the first of many broken fourth wall bits) as the number progresses.

When Freddy rolls into Jameson's house and admires the "Great Big Stuff" we get a cool, slick, hip-hop-ish showstopper that should surely get a Tony Nomination (if not win) for Butz. Andre sings about Freddy just being a "Chimp In A Suit" as Jameson starts to educate Freddy in the finer art of class. Freddy's first lesson involves watching Jameson woo a young Oklahoman oil heiress named Jolene Oakes (Sara Gettelfinger...in the film she's just a lady from Okalahoma). Things go wrong when she mistakes Jameson's advances for a marriage proposal (and inspiring a great joke from Freddy as he sits in the audience watching and asks if he missed a scene). When Jolene gives us the second showstopper "Oklahoma?" (about how Jameson's gonna love it there), Jameson must figure out a way to get her to fall out of love with him. Freddy helps and becomes his idiot brother for a third showstopper called "All About Ruprecht".

After a brief reprise of "What Was A Woman To Do" from Muriel when she runs into Andre, we finally get the set up of the bet between Freddy and Lawrence as Christine Colgate, the American Soap Queen (in the movie it was Janet in another example of why did they change that name) arrives in town with "Here I Am".

Freddy pretends he's a wounded war veteran in a wheelchair to gain her symapthies in order to woo her. She falls for his advances and chicanery noting that "Nothing Is Too Wonderful To Be True", a number that starts off a bit jarringly as it seems out of place with the rest of the show's over-the-top comedy. Luckily, once Freddy starts singing the number quickly falls in line with the rest of what's come before it.

Act One ends with Jameson showing up, much to Freddie's surprise, as the German psychiatrist who is the only person who can cure him (which Freddie concocted as part of his story).

Act Two picks up just before the end of Act One (in another of those odd, yet funny moments of breaking the fourth wall). Posing as Dr. Emil Shuffhausen II, Jameson "exmaines" Sgt. Buzz Benson's legs in an attempt to foil Freddie's plan and reveal him for who he is ("Ruffhousin With Shuffhausen"). Meanwhile, in an attempt to fluff out the plot of a 90 minute movie into a 2 and one half hour musical (as well as beef up Ms. Gleason's role...something the character even mentions in Act One), Andre and Muriel start to fall in love ("Like Zis/Like Zat").

Dr. Shuffhausen convinces Chrstine that the only way to cure Buzz's problem is to tackle his psychosis, so "The More We Dance" the more he'll want to get out of his wheelchair. Freddie doesn't fall for it and does his best to keep up with Jameson's tricks. He eventually comes back to Christine's hotel room to exclaim that "Love Is In My Legs" (one of the funniest romantic ballad spoofs ever to hit Broadway), but Jameson intervenes again.

He sends Christine away before Freddie can win the bet (which changes from extracting money to getting her in bed at some point in Act Two when Jameson discovers she isn't rich). At the train station, Jameson realizes he's falling for her ("Love Sneaks In" -- the only bland song in the bunch as it's a real ballad that isn't funny and brings everything to a halt). The subplot of Andre and Muriel gets a brief reprise of "Like Zis/Like Zat" before Christine returns to Freddie in order to inadvertantly give him the win on the bet with "Son Of Great Big Stuff". But being a story about con artists, there's one last twist that I won't reveal before our con men sing of "The Reckoning" and finally make friends again in "Dirty Rotten Number".

The most important part of a musical is the songs and I've still got almost all of them rattling around my head 24 hours later. The acting is all top notch with potential Tony nominees in both Butz and Jbara. The one weak spot is, as I've already stated, the under use of Joanna Gleason. The lighting and sets are really kind of funky and cool. The entire show has what I'd refer to as "grand minimalist" as a turntable off center within a second turntable, some art deco palm trees, a staircase, a balcony, a set of doors and a few other minor set pieces keep getting reconfigured to make each setting.

The show's biggest obstacle is unfortunately the window it's opening it. It's living in the long shadow of that other con man musical based on a movie, The Producers (now starring Richard Kind and Alan Ruck, which may make it worth seeing again). The comparisons are both inevitable and unfortunate as I found this show funnier (don't get me wrong, I still loved The Producers). It has also opened two weeks ahead of Monty Python's Spamalot (which we'll be seeing a few days after it opens...so look for a review soon) and that show's coming in like the juggernaut The Producers was when it opened. Unfortunately, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels may get lost in the shuffle. Hopefully it won't as I want...no need...a cast album...if only to learn the lyrics to "Great Big Stuff".

That's all for today.

Be seeing you.