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    ‘Spamalot’ Review: You’ll Laugh in Its General Direction

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    In the first Broadway revival of the Monty Python musical, the old bits are verbatim but the clowns are running the circus.Even the coconuts get entrance applause.If you’ve seen “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” the 1975 movie spoof of all things Arthurian and many things not, you know the coconuts I mean. And if you’re enough of a Python fan to have also seen “Spamalot,” the 2005 Broadway musical “lovingly ripped off” from the film, you’ve probably memorized the whole bit. That’s the one in which Arthur’s trusted patsy, Patsy, slaps coconut halves together so the deluded king can pretend he has a horse. Call it a filly à deux.But the coconuts, whether or not they came to medieval England strung between two migratory African swallows, have stiff competition for beloved silliness in the blissful Broadway revival of “Spamalot” that opened on Thursday at the St. James Theater. They are by no means the only old favorites greeted with entrance applause. Among many others, so are a troupe of self-flagellating monks, a cart of corpses, a vulgar French taunter and a Trojan rabbit.This is the problem, and I suppose the glory, of a property (or should I say a shrubbery) like “Spamalot,” by Eric Idle of the original troupe and the composer John Du Prez. Drilled deep into the culture through thousands of collegiate viewings, many of those viewings enhanced by once-illegal substances, the loosely assembled collection of skits has become holy writ, not to be messed with. If a production dared to change anything, it would surely face an audience of originalists screaming “ni!” — though to be fair, it faces them anyway, as “Spamalot” has become a kind of Python karaoke.So what’s a revival to do?This one, directed and choreographed by Josh Rhodes, gives the “ni”-sayers what they want. As far as I can tell, the best original bits are all preserved verbatim.Also preserved, obviously, is what passes for the plot, in which Arthur (James Monroe Iglehart) mucks about England with Patsy (Christopher Fitzgerald) in search of knights to sit at the “very round” table. Yet before the assembled half-wits can fully enjoy the Las Vegas floor show that is Camelot, God (Steve Martin in an uncredited voice-over) commands them to stop their tap dancing and shove off in search of the holy grail. Not everyone is impressed. “If God is all-knowing,” says the not-so-brave Sir Robin, who may be looking to avoid personal bloodshed, “surely He must know where it is.”Though uttering the same lines as Idle did in the movie, and as David Hyde Pierce did in the 2005 production, Michael Urie as Robin puts a differently delightful comic spin on them. Throughout, Rhodes has encouraged the cast to personalize the material and, in many cases, enhance it. Taran Killam, expert as Lancelot and several of the quirkiest supporting characters, gives the French taunter not only the requisite outrageous accent but also a raspberry aria worthy of Mozart. In turn, when he sneers “I blow my nose at you, so-called Arthur-king, you and all your silly English knnnniggets,” Arthur and Sir Galahad (Nik Walker) do a brilliant triple take — they are Black.In some hilarious head space between Liza Minnelli and Celine Dion, Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer, as the Lady of the Lake, essentially steals the show as she scats, belts and mutters private thoughts.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesLetting the clowns run the flying circus, at least part-time, is integral to the history of Python’s success. (Idle told The Times that the material survives because “it was written by its actors and acted by its writers.”) It is also a smart move for a show that could otherwise feel calcified; a production I saw at the Stratford Festival over the summer seemed more like an animatronic museum exhibit, making me doubt it was really revivable.And even this mostly excellent production betrays a faint odor of mothballs, especially in the projection-heavy scenic design of Paul Tate dePoo III, so dependent on the feel of Terry Gilliam’s original animations. The key to the comedy is not after all replication but individuation. The Pythons were each their own kind of oddball, and the bits are only funny with fresh bite.Another humor helper is authenticity. When Lancelot (who likes to dance a lot) comes to the rescue of a damsel in distress, and that damsel turns out to be a dopey prince named Herbert (Ethan Slater), the comics calibrate the exact middle point between snark and sincerity. (“Just think, Herbert,” says Lance as they kiss, “in a thousand years’ time this will still be controversial.”) The drag bits are likewise laughable yet honorable, as when Galahad’s blowzy mother, Mrs. Galahad (Jimmy Smagula), the recent widow of Nobby the Cretin, stands up proudly to Arthur: “I didn’t vote for you.” Equal-opportunity offensiveness — to gays, Jews, French, Finns and every kind of Briton — makes the show inoffensive to all.Unless, that is, you are very sensitive about your addled divas in sparkly gowns. Among a cast of performers unafraid to chew scenery, Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer, as the Lady of the Lake, that “watery tart” who “lobbed a scimitar” at Arthur, is the top masticator. In some hilarious head space between Liza Minnelli and Celine Dion, scatting, belting and muttering private thoughts — including, on the night I saw it, ad-libs about Patti LuPone and Ozempic — she essentially steals the show despite her frequent absences from it. The first line of her big second-act number is “Whatever happened to my part?”The revival leans into such meta-moments, which lean away from the movie and into a wonderland of Broadway self-reference. (Another snake-eating-its-tail song is “The Song That Goes Like This.”) Rhodes knows how to build these beautifully; they take off like roman candles. (Shield your eyes from the brightness of Cory Pattak’s lights and the dazzle of Jen Caprio’s costumes.) And if too many of the big numbers hit the same notes of too-muchness, Rhodes also lands the quiet ones gently, including “I’m All Alone,” in which Arthur laments his solitude while poor Patsy, fulfilling his name, stands next to him singing backup.For all its nostalgia value, and its endless verbal invention, “Spamalot,” like “Holy Grail,” and like the television series that spawned them both, has a very vexed soul. Taunters are angry, the taunted suffer, royals trace their authority to “some moistened bint” and God sends horseless knights to locate misplaced cups. It’s not a nice world out there in the Middle Ages — or ours. Luckily, vexations are evergreen if given half a chance, and, at least on Broadway, are assuageable. Just remember to always look on the bright side of life. And that supposedly harmless bunnies aren’t.SpamalotAt the St. James Theater, Manhattan; spamalotthemusical.com. Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes. More

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      It Is Not Dead Yet! ‘Spamalot’ Returns to Broadway. (Cue the Coconuts.)

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      The Monty Python-inspired show wants to give audiences a reason “to laugh and enjoy and be taken away by this lunacy, in the best way possible.”The terrifying knights still say “Ni!” The dead? Well, they are not quite dead yet. And King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table (not dawn, not dusk, not late afternoon, but knights) still trot around to the sounds of coconuts banging together.All that is to say: “Spamalot” is back on Broadway, and it is still quite silly.The silliness was on display last month during a rehearsal at the Gibney Studios in Manhattan. David Josefsberg, one of the show’s standby actors, was having difficulty staying in character as the incompetent warlock Tim the Enchanter. The scene required him to adopt an outrageous accent to warn the knights about a scary beast, which ends up being a rabbit. (And the rabbit ends up being quite homicidal!) But he couldn’t keep it together as members of the cast and crew giggled while watching from the sides of the room. The giggles were contagious, filling the room throughout the rehearsal, including when the knights had to vary the banging of the coconuts between “trot” and “not trot.”The actors have been breaking character “all the time,” Josh Rhodes, the show’s director and choreographer, said after the rehearsal.“It’s lonely trying to land jokes. It’s a lousy thing to do to repeat it over and over again to a dead room,” Rhodes said. “Right now we’re still crafting it. So you want the energy in the room to still be a little silly.”Rhodes has a personal connection to the show: His husband, Lee Wilkins, was a replacement swing in the original Broadway production, which opened in 2005. They married during the run. As King Arthur, James Monroe Iglehart is among a who’s who of Broadway notables in the cast: “I make a joke all the time that there are two kings on Broadway — Mufasa and me.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesFor the uninitiated, “Spamalot” is a Monty Python-inspired spoof adapted from that comedy troupe’s 1975 cult film, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” A sendup of King Arthur’s mythical quest for the Holy Grail, the movie was written by and starred the group’s members — John Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Graham Chapman and Terry Jones. It was Idle who had the idea to adapt it as a Broadway musical. (“Spam” is a reference to a Python sketch.)Idle wrote the original book and lyrics, and wrote the music with John Du Prez. Mike Nichols directed, and Casey Nicholaw choreographed. It was a smash, winning the Tony Award for best musical and running for nearly four years. In The New York Times, Ben Brantley called the show “resplendently silly” and a “fitful, eager celebration of inanity.”At the time of that initial Broadway run, it had been decades since any truly new Python material — the 1983 film “Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life” — and the musical, which has since had productions in the West End and international tours, exposed a new generation to the quintessential British brand of humor. The revival, which opens Nov. 16 at the St. James Theater, is in a similar position. The last meaningful Python collaboration was in 2014, when the group united for a series of shows at the O2 Arena in London. (Two members of the group have died: Chapman in 1989 and Jones in 2020.)Idle said he had “no idea” how Python’s brand of humor had continued to hold up today.“Python is portmanteau comedy,” Idle, 80, wrote in an email via a spokeswoman. “It has a bit of everything. People always found it funny but they didn’t always agree on which bits. I think it survives because it was written by its actors and acted by its writers. It is executive-free comedy.”This revival was the brainchild of the producer Jeffrey Finn, an executive at the Kennedy Center in Washington. Rhodes’s production of “Spamalot” had a critically well-received run there this past spring, and garnered enough of an audience response that Finn thought a Broadway production could overcome the ticket sale malaise that pervades the industry.“What I feel like we proved at the Kennedy Center is that the escapism and the joy in the theater that this show delivers is what I feel audiences are looking for now,” Finn said. “Because it’s a crazy, harsh world out there, and having two and a half hours just to laugh and enjoy and be taken away by this lunacy, in the best way possible, is just joyful.”“Spamalot” was adapted from the 1975 movie “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” which satirizes the Arthurian legend. Columbia PicturesThe revival doesn’t update the book or music substantially, if at all, but the show does offer new staging, choreography and improv from a who’s who of Broadway notables, including James Monroe Iglehart (King Arthur), Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer (the Lady of the Lake), Ethan Slater (Prince Herbert) and Taran Killam (Lancelot).“Have you ever seen a person of color play the king? No,” said Iglehart, who originated the role of the Genie in the Broadway adaptation of “Aladdin.” (This is his first leading role on Broadway.) “I make a joke all the time that there are two kings on Broadway: Mufasa and me.”At the rehearsal, the run-through was chock-full of inside jokes about Broadway and references to current events. But ultimately the troupe’s material — exhibited in several films, a television show, tours and albums — is still the backbone of the show.Killam, the “Saturday Night Live” alum, called himself a “dyed-in-the-wool” Python fan and said that the “intelligent absurdist humor of Python is in my veins.” (Killam will be replaced by Alex Brightman in January. Brightman was in the Kennedy Center production, but the opening of the Broadway run conflicted with his current Broadway production, the play “The Shark Is Broken.”)“They were a true variety sketch group,” Killam said. “There were six different voices with different points of view and different objectives. So that brought such good balance. I think the sort of life spirit of their comedy is absurdity and certainly aiming that absurdity at social and economical structures of power, be it the monarchy or the church or banks or a class system. There is an intelligence about their absurdity.”The Python inclination to poke fun at institutions is present throughout “Spamalot,” as when God commands Arthur and his knights to find the Holy Grail. In response, a knight wonders why God himself — if he is all-knowing — doesn’t know where it is.The show’s director Josh Rhodes, center, flanked by the producer Jeffrey Finn, and the associate director Deidre Goodwin during rehearsals last month.Gregg Delman for The New York TimesThe biggest difference between “Holy Grail” and “Spamalot” is the Lady of the Lake character, who does not exist in the movie. The role has become a launching pad of sorts. Sara Ramirez won a best featured actress Tony for originating the role on Broadway. Hannah Waddingham, a star of the hit Apple show “Ted Lasso,” performed the part in the West End and was nominated for an Olivier.Kritzer, a theater veteran who last appeared on Broadway in “Beetlejuice,” wasn’t as familiar as Killam with the work of Monty Python, but she did see the original production with Ramirez.“I never thought of myself doing this role, simply for the fact that very tall women have played this part — and I am 5-foot-3,” Kritzer said. “Everyone’s like, ‘Oh my God, it’s perfect for you.’ And I was like, ‘Really?’ I always think of it as this tall person role. And then when I got into rehearsal, I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is like my modern Carol Burnett showcase.’”In this version, Kritzer said, “they let us improvise a lot. I’m doing things that were never in the original, ever, ever. Musically and otherwise.”When Monty Python burst onto the scene in the 1960s, its brand of comedy was considered revolutionary. They broke the rules of traditional comedy at the time with unusually structured sketches that would routinely break the fourth wall, end abruptly and not rely on simple punchlines, not to mention Gilliam’s zany animations.Now, “Spamalot,” at least in 2023, is a safe comedy with an enduring fan base who devour all things Python. This was apparent at an early preview, when Killam emerged as one of the Knights of Ni. The crowd started chanting “Ni!” before Killam said a word, prompting Killam to gesture to the crowd as if to say, “You get it.”“Even in any of the comedies that I’ve done on Broadway, there’s always some like, ‘We’re going to learn something,’” Kritzer said. “We don’t really learn something in this. We just have a great time, and that’s OK.”As to whether this will be the last-ever newish Monty Python project, Idle responded, “We can only pray.” More

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      ‘Spamalot’ Revival to Open on Broadway This Fall

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      The new production, directed by Josh Rhodes, had a brief run at the Kennedy Center in Washington in May. Casting has not yet been announced.Make way for shrubbery: “Spamalot” is returning to Broadway.The show, a Monty Python-inspired spoof of Arthurian legend, first opened on Broadway in 2005, won the Tony Award for best musical, ran for four years, and has been widely staged since then.This new production, which had a 10-day run in May at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, will be the musical’s first Broadway revival.Previews are scheduled to begin Oct. 31, and the opening is set for Nov. 16 at the St. James Theater. The executive producer will be Jeffrey Finn, who is the Kennedy Center’s vice president of theater producing and programming.“I have been a crazy fan of ‘Spamalot’ since I saw the opening in 2005,” Finn said. “I feel as though in 2023, audiences are really looking for a fun escape and an opportunity to laugh as much as possible, and I believe this show delivers all of that.”The casting for Broadway has not yet been announced; at the Kennedy Center the cast included Alex Brightman, James Monroe Iglehart, Leslie Rodriguez Kritzer, Rob McClure, Matthew Saldivar, Jimmy Smagula, Michael Urie and Nik Walker.The musical, based on the screenplay for “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” features a book and lyrics by Eric Idle, who was a member of the Monty Python comedy group. The music is by Idle and John Du Prez. Reviewing the original production, The New York Times critic Ben Brantley called it “resplendently silly” and a “fitful, eager celebration of inanity.”The revival is directed and choreographed by Josh Rhodes, who will be making his Broadway directing debut; he has worked on Broadway as a performer and choreographer. (Rhodes’s husband, Lee Wilkins, was a replacement swing in the original “Spamalot” company.)Rhodes described “Spamalot” as “a beautiful satire of Broadway, and of the class system,” and said he is excited to introduce Monty Python to a generation of theatergoers who may be unfamiliar with the group’s history and work. “In D.C., there was some sort of incredible energy from the audience that made us realize people were so hungry for this material,” he said. “There was a rowdiness that maybe wasn’t there before, and made it feel very special.”The “Spamalot” revival will be the first production developed by the Kennedy Center’s Broadway Center Stage program to transfer to Broadway; Finn created the program in 2018, and it has evolved from presenting semi-staged concert versions of existing musicals to presenting fully staged, but short-run, productions. The Kennedy Center had a previous history of nurturing work that transferred to Broadway; the last Kennedy Center-produced transfer was a 2014 revival of “Side Show.”A few years ago a movie version of the musical was in the works, but Paramount Pictures, which held the rights to produce it, is no longer pursuing the project, and Idle suggested on Twitter earlier this year that that the film adaptation had been killed. More

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      Review: In ‘Dear World,’ Donna Murphy Leads a Righteous March

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      Jerry Herman’s rarely seen 1969 musical is revived in an Encores! production at New York City Center.If the composer-lyricist Jerry Herman loved one thing, it was a brassy dame who bulldozes past all obstacles in her quest for the best possible life for herself. The women at the center of his best-known shows, “Hello, Dolly!” and “Mame,” are pathologically positive, speaking directly to our vanities and vulnerabilities — and are celebrated for it.Who better to teach a larger-than-life lesson than a strident diva in a bold headpiece? Such is the case with Countess Aurelia, the protagonist of his 1969 flop, “Dear World,” which New York City Center’s Encores! has revived in a blissed-out concert production that opened on Wednesday.Led by Donna Murphy, and directed and choreographed by Josh Rhodes with laissez-faire humor, it presents a smaller, looser, but still effective Herman elixir.Based on a fable-like Jean Giraudoux play, “The Madwoman of Chaillot,” Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s book follows the Countess Aurelia (Murphy), a Parisian eccentric who spends her days al fresco at the Cafe Francis, learning to love all before her “through the bottom of the glass.” When clouds (whimsically rendered by Paul Tate dePoo III as sparse hangings above his bohemian set of chaises, trunks and old clocks) threaten her outdoor seating, she simply wills them away with folksy charisma.But her peace is disturbed when a young official, Julian (Phillip Johnson Richardson), is sent by the President (a swaggering, delectably petulant Brooks Ashmanskas) to blow up the cafe so they can drill into oil recently discovered beneath. With the water supply already affected, Aurelia leads the charge against the bureaucrats, aided by the friendly Sewerman (Christopher Fitzgerald) and her bosom buddies, Gabrielle (Ann Harada) and Constance (Andréa Burns), the Madwomen of Montmartre and of the Flea Market.From left: Andrea Burns, Murphy and Ann Harada in the revival of Jerry Herman’s 1969 musical.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIt’s easy to see how this fantastical musical could float away from a less confident, cleareyed director. Here, Rhodes (who helmed Herman’s “Mack & Mabel” for Encores! in 2020) emphasizes the kookiness of his well-sketched characters in a spacey way that makes everything feel, if not logical, then natural. His choreography is similarly simple, and works well for the ensemble, save for a vaguely anti-war, ballet-inspired solo performed during the entr’acte by Kody Jauron, who shines in a miming role.The score is by far Herman’s most relaxed; if “Dolly” is a bottle of Champagne and “Mame” a speedball, “World” is a Shirley Temple (Aurelia herself only ever takes one sip of wine a day). It’s perhaps a side effect from having written new material for the film adaptation of “Hello, Dolly!” that same year, with songs tailored for the close-up rather than the chorus line.The new Encores! music director Mary-Mitchell Campbell’s conducting is mostly swooning and enlivens the work, though she often opts for arrangements that warmly dissolve each number into a Parisian haze rather than charge up a triumphant belt. (Campbell, who did extensive research on the score’s many variations, has directed Philip J. Lang’s orchestrations toward a calmer phrasing than the original.) Only the crystal-clear voiced Samantha Williams, as the yearning waitress Nina, is allowed to soar vocally past the end of her stunning “I’ve Never Said I Love You.”But the intoxicating strength of the show’s leading lady still pulsates throughout — even when, as is often the case with these concert stagings, Murphy had her book in hand for the dramatic scenes. (She had to miss the first five days of rehearsal after testing positive for Covid.) Before curtain, the Encores! artistic director Lear deBessonet made the announcement, almost anxiously, but it certainly didn’t alter Murphy’s ability to deliver what she always does: an endlessly reinvigorating voice at once worldly, incredulous, curious and confident.Murphy’s Countess is a dotty, conscientious woman awoken from her comfort and determined to claim it back. If anything, Murphy’s consulting of the script amounted to a more organically astonished character, searching for the best words of affirmation in the face of encroaching danger. She first breaks through that slumber in the frenzied “I Don’t Want to Know,” which Murphy sings with captivating vulnerability.Christopher Fitzgerald, center, leads the ensemble in a tale that pits locals against the “hoards of pretentious, power-hungry, self-serving men consumed by greed.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAnd Burns nearly steals the second act in her brief solo, “Memory,” a coquettish dream of past flames. She looks dazzling, as does everyone else, in Toni Leslie James’s lovingly fussy, belle epoque-tinged costumes, and Matthew Armentrout’s wigs, the best of which being Murphy’s powder-white hair to match her blanched makeup.Everyone’s a little loopy in “Dear World” (Aurelia feels the touch of her former beau, Constance hears voices, Gabrielle walks around an imaginary dog), but not as mad as the incoming corporate forces. In Sandy Rustin’s concert adaptation, and under Rhodes’ direction, these aren’t the dust-ridden old biddies for which the original script seems to call for — the three of them look radiantly alive, for starters — but headstrong women who rather mean it when they offer to kill the “hoards of pretentious, power-hungry, self-serving men consumed by greed.”Considering our current climate of reactive, out-loud politics, the melodramatic straightforwardness of Lawrence and Lee’s story doesn’t seem as far-out as it once did. Now, as then, Herman’s tuneful, yes-we-can score holds a steady beat for all to march to.Dear WorldThrough Sunday at New York City Center, Manhattan; nycitycenter.org. Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes. More