“Geek”end – Day 1 Spameless
The weekend of April 24
through 26 was dubbed Geekend in the Stickeler household as we had a weekend
full of, well, potentially geek stuff to do.
The plan for Friday Night was Spamelot (a musical loosely based on Monty
Python’s Holy Grail). I had seen two
professional productions of this and one Little Theatre production (the latter
with George) previously. I was a bit
underwhelmed to the performance George and I attended so I had been wanting him
to see it again and also take Victoria, as she knew the music but not the
show. Saturday Night was the Flash 25
year Celebration. A viewing of two
episodes and a panel discussion with the star, John Wesley Shipp, as well as a
number of actors, actresses, and production folks, most notably (for me) Mark
Hamill who portrayed the Trickster. The
weekend was to culminate in a viewing of 2001: A Space Odyssey, seen at the
Cineramadome in Hollywood. Presented in
the original 70 mm, Cinerama format. I’ve
seen this movie over 30 times (only once in Cinerama), George has seen it twice
(once on Blu Ray and once on the big screen).
I had been wanting Victoria to see it and the opportunity arose on the
26th. Weekends don’t get much
better than this.
Spamelot is an exceptionally
funny show. It mixes the brilliance of
Monty Python dialogue with great music (some already in the Monty Python
Library and some original for the show).
Presented properly, the dialogue is quick and doesn’t bother explaining
the jokes. That’s why it works. Presented poorly, the dialogue is slow, the
accents are inconsistent, and there are delays waiting for laughs that just don’t
always show up. This presentation was,
in my humble opinion, presented poorly.
The first thing I believe the cast of a show like this needs is to “get
it.” They need to be in on the
joke. I didn’t get that sense form this
group of actors. And I don’t think they
were necessarily bad actors, just not right for this script. This with the exception of the actress
playing the Lady of the Lake. She was
funny and had a great singing voice (the only role in this play where I think
that is really necessary – her range helps the humor). She was able to hold her own with a group of
weak performances without overshadowing.
And honestly, she was awfully cute.
The biggest disappointment to
me, however wasn’t the performances (or lack thereof) but the rewriting of one
of my favorite songs. There is a point
on the play where it is necessary for Arthur and his band of knights to put on
a Broadway play. The problem is twofold. One, Broadway is more than 1000 years in the
future and two, as the song says, “You Won’t Succeed on Broadway if You Don’t
Have Any Jews!” The songs speak of all
the things you can try but that you really need the Jews for success. At one point the melody goes into a take on
Hava Nagillah and further in there is a reenactment of the bottle dance from
Fiddler on the Roof. It is a great
musical number. It’s big and over
dramatic and funny. That’s the key, it’s
funny. Well someone at this theatre must
have been offended or feared offending so they changed the song to “You Won’t
Succeed on Broadway if You Don’t Have any Stars.” What the Hell??? First off, that’s pretty self explanatory and
second, What the Hell? They did an okay
job at rewording it but still . . . I’ll
be honest, I do not find that song offensive.
I find it pretty funny and, in a way, respectful. But that’s just me.
But on the positive side the
kids enjoyed themselves and it gave us a chance to do something together. And it made day two all the more anticipated.
No comments:
Post a Comment