| Produced, rehearsed, and staged entirely
by The 5th, “Monty Python's Spamalot” is one of the Seattle's proudest
moments starting 2014. This musical comedy has been showing since 2004,
it went through Broadway-New York, Australia, UK, Ireland, Netherlands,
etc., almost all over the world, and ran over 1,500 performances. The original 2005 Broadway production won three Tony Awards, including the Best Musical of the 2004 – 2005 season, and received 14 Tony Awards nominations. This year, David Armstrong, the Executive Producer and Artistic Director, decided to put up our own World-Class show together with the Director, Josh Rhodes. Based on an epic 1975 British comedy film “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, Eric Idle --- the script, music and lyrics writer, developed the legend of Camelot to Spamalot. The term “SPAM”, in Idle's definition, refers to the irrelevant dances and songs which audience are about to laugh uncontrollably. This signature self-mocking humor also has become one of the main components that transformed the plot to a funky parody show. It is not surprising to have a scene in which men and women slapping each other in the face with fishes in such a burlesque and comedic form, the simple story line of King Arthur travels the land to recruit Knights of the Round Table to join him in Camelot and looks for Holy Gail competed by the burlesque traditions including the Arthurian legends. Not to forget the church scene, traditional folk songs and historical myths. Lastly, of course, Las Vegas floor shows and disco are expected. “Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.” To gather up all these popular shows is easy. Completeness is hard. During the two hours, it can be as sentimental as experiencing love and life in different circumstances; as rational as bringing up the historical issues; and as digressive as performers turning cartwheels with their Seahawks jerseys. I admire Idle to smoothly cope with the dilemma between freedom of the stage and coherence, and not changing it to a heartless, boring and regular dancing show. Let the laughter out, featuring an All-Star Seattle Cast, “Monty Python's Spamalot” playing at 5th Avenue Theatre through March 2 2014. |
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| Written by Shita Lam |
| Wednesday, 19 February 2014 14:33 |
