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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > March > 11
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Review: ‘Spamalot’
Guest blogger and American-Statesman features writer Patrick Beach review’s “Monty Python’s Spamalot” while American-Statesman freelancer John DeFore asks the show’s star, Richard Chamberlain, a few questions
Coconut shells. The “Fisch Schlapping Dance.” “Not dead yet.” A black knight who insists on continuing the battle, never mind the pesky amputations and arterial spray. And a killer rabbit.
By this point, we all know these bits will be in “Spamalot,” the musical “lovingly ripped off from the motion picture ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail,’ ” as they put it in the playbill. The show, with book and lyrics by Python alum Eric Idle, won a Tony for best musical in ‘05 and made enough dough to fill a moat while on Broadway. We can’t expect many surprises. We’re going to get an adaptation of a 1975 movie and a few of the Pythons’ greatest hits. Thematic or tonal coherence? Who cares? The original Python cast never did.
But at Tuesday night’s opening of a six-day run at Bass Concert Hall, the show felt like a comfort food entree with a twist for the side dish. The sound was spot-on, the sets dizzyingly adaptable (moving clouds that served as supertitles for a closing sing-along) and the full house was just waiting to laugh at lines they’d heard only a thousand times before. (Wait for it, wait for it … ni!) It must be said that Richard (“Dr. Kildare,” “The Thornbirds”) Chamberlain is a very fine King Arthur, playing him as both oblivious and in on the joke, and that Merle Dandridge as the brazenly ambitious Lady in the Lake — a part she also played in the Broadway production — is a near show-stealer. I still don’t get how the Pythons’ version of wanton silliness and deadpan dadaism could ever be translated into a Broadway musical, which is all extravagance and hyperbole and light, but it does and does so even while grappling with the greatest theological brow-furrower ever to confront the human race: Why can’t God find another cup?
The best moments not cribbed from the film or the TV series arguably are when the show pays fromage to cheesy Broadway and Vegas musicals, but let’s face it, Andrew Lloyd Webber is a record-busting pike in a thimble-sized barrel. The audience’s laughs were genuine, but it’s cheap and easy sport.
But a cow falling out of the sky and squashing somebody? Now that’s comedy. And I really, really hope God has John Cleese’s voice.
— Pat Beach, AA-S features writer
‘Spamalot” continues 8 p.m. night throughSaturday, 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, and 7:30 p.m. Sunday. $21.50-$65.50. 51-477-6060, www.utpac.org.
Richard Chamberlain, who takes the stage next week as King Arthur in “Spamalot,” owes the bulk of his fan base not to Monty Python-style irreverence but to dignified melodrama and globe-spanning adventure. He emerged in the 1960s as television’s “Dr. Kildare,” made hit movies in the ’70s and then became king of the miniseries in the ’80s with “Shogun,” “The Bourne Identity,” and (be still your beating heart) “The Thorn Birds.” Speaking to us on the phone recently, he was just as genial and charming as legions of admirers would expect.
Austin American-Statesman: Were you very aware of ‘Monty Python’ when it was originally on TV?
Richard Chamberlain: Yes, I was living in London from ’68 through ’74, and we were avid fans. We thought they were just miraculously funny.
Any favorite bits?
Well, (laughs), the one that sticks in my mind — I hate to be boring — is the Bureau of Silly Walks. Oh, what an amazing thing!
When they started making the transition to features, what did you think?
Well, I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to the features. Matter of fact, the first time I saw the movie that this musical is based on was just a few weeks ago.
How did you like it compared with the play?
Well, I think the musical is about 10 times funnier than the movie.
What’s it like filling Tim Curry’s shoes? Did you see him do the show?
No, unfortunately. I wanted to see him so badly, but I was never in the right place at the right time. I didn’t see the musical until just before Christmas in New York last year. They’ve had many kings now, and according to what I’ve heard, they’ve all been very different.
So there’s no temptation, given that the play has been so successful, not to stray too far from the performance fans know.
Oh, no, no, no. With the king, the two kings I’ve seen, the one in New York and the one who preceded me in the road company, were totally different. And I’m completely different from both of them. The thing about Arthur is he’s the only one onstage who doesn’t get the jokes. He’s fun to play.
Just as ‘Spamalot’ has turned ‘The Holy Grail’ into a musical, one of your most famous television outings, ‘The Thorn Birds’ is being staged as a musical.
I just heard that, about a week ago! I was absolutely bowled over. I can’t imagine it. I mean, it would be more of an opera, wouldn’t it, than a musical, because it’s just one tragedy after another.
Any advice for them as they try to adapt it?
Oh no. I wouldn’t dare! I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like.
Well, that’s such a trend now, of trying to make musicals from unlikely sources.
They tried to make a musical of “Shogun”! But it didn’t work.
— John DeFore, AA-S freelancer
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Conspirare makes TV debut, Craig Hella Johnson release solo CD
Celebrated Austin-based, Grammy-nominated choir Conspirare adds another couple of firsts to its list.
Tonight, the ensemble makes its national television premiere on PBS-affiliate KLRU. And Thursday, Conspirare artistic director and founder Craig Hella Johnson celebrates the release of his first solo CD.
‘A Company of Voices: Conspirare in Concert’ airs at 7 p.m. today, and 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Sunday on KLRU.
“A Company of Voices: Conspirare in Concert” was filmed in front of a live audience last fall at the Long Center, the first time Austin’s new performing arts center was used for such an event. The one-hour show is quintessential Conspirare, showing Johnson’s signature collage style of musically quilting together classical choral works with spirituals, traditional American folk songs and pop standards into a fluid, layered whole.
“A Company of Voices” is scheduled to air on more than 130 PBS-affiliated stations in 28 states this month, PBS pledge month.
For his first solo recording, Johnson — who has an expressive, almost ethereal singing voice — takes a detour from classical music. Accompanying himself on the piano, Johnson collaborates with Eliza Gilkyson on Bob Dylan’s “Ring Them Bells” and solos on Gilkyson’s “The Way That You Are,” the first ever recording of the song. Songs by Billy Jo Shaver and Dan Fogelberg complement Johnson’s original pieces set to lyrics and poems of Emily Dickinson and Tagore. The final track is a haunting rendition of “Killing Me Softly With His Song” featuring renowned Austin cellist Bion Tsang.
“I really wanted to reach out to a broader audience with this CD, beyond my classical work,” Johnson said. “(This CD) is quite personal — these are some of the songs I sing late night at home while sitting at the piano. It’s just another way of expressing something inside that needs to be expressed.”
Craig Hella Johnson celebrates the release of ‘Thorns on a Rose’ CD with a signing from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday at Waterloo Records, 600 N. Lamar Blvd. Photo: Deborah Ray Turner for AA-S.
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Austin Museum of Art announces a few changes
The Austin Museum of Art has announced several organizational changes.
From an official release:
“I’m proud to announce the promotion of Judith Sims to Senior Director of Education,” said Dana Friis-Hansen, AMOA Executive Director. “In addition, AMOA will begin the search for a new Chief Curator. Both of these changes will allow the Museum to better focus on serving its varied audiences through strengthened education and exhibition programs.”
Sims has served as the Director of the AMOA-Art School for the last thirty-five years and brings a tremendous wealth of knowledge and experience to the position. During her tenure with the Museum, Sims has created innovative programming and outreach including film and video, spearheaded three successful renovations at Laguna Gloria, and served as the Executive Producer of a statewide PBS television series The Territory for the past 25 years. Sims’ new role will unite The Art School and the Education Departments. In conjunction with this promotion, AMOA will also begin the search for a new Chief Curator.
