Richard Roeper says Spamalot will play for years

[pacificnorthwest]

Posted: 1/13/05 at 10:56am

Here's his column in today's Chicago Sun-Times:


Shubert finds theater's Holy Grail: a smash hit

January 13, 2005

BY RICHARD ROEPER SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

I have seen the next "Producers," and its name is "Spamalot." In one form or another, the stage production of "Monty Python's Spamalot" will be playing well into the next decade. After the sold-out, pre-Broadway tryout at the Shubert Theater ends Jan. 23, it's on to Broadway, where this exuberantly cheeky twist on "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" will play for years and years. "Spamalot" signage will join "Mamma Mia!" et al. as a practically permanent part of the Times Square landscape.



After the Broadway run, with various stars picking up the lead roles, there will be touring companies; probably a Vegas home, and maybe even a movie based on the play based on the movie based oh-so-loosely on the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Very, Very Round Table.

I caught the show Tuesday night at the Shubert, and let me just say that everyone in the cast was top-notch, from name stars Hank Azaria, Tim Curry and David Hyde Pierce to the lesser-known but at least equally talented Christopher Seiber and Sara Ramirez (the Tony is hers), to the back of the guy's head who was a few rows in front of me.

A word about that head. It was a very large, very blocky head, and yet from my vantage point, it remained a constant force in the play from start to finish. Take a bow, large head!

If you've seen "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," one of the top 50 film comedies of all time, you will start chortling the moment you recognize the set-ups for legendary gags involving Trojan Rabbits, an armless and legless knight who claims he's only suffered a flesh wound, and a king who doesn't have a horse but does have a faithful sidekick who approximates the sound of a horse by clacking coconuts together. If you haven't seen the film, you'll realize why these bits worked so well in the first place, and you'll make "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" your next DVD rental.

The new stuff is just as witty and cheerfully tasteless, including a devastating take on Andrew Lloyd Webber ballads, a brazenly un-PC number explaining why your show won't make it on Broadway if you don't have any Jews, and a sight gag involving a peasant who holds up a sign proclaiming, "Support Our Troops!"

***

The movie-to-stage-production trend is all the rage these days. (Though some of the movies being turned into plays were originally books.) In addition to "The Producers" and "Spamalot," films that have been adapted, or will be adapted, or might be adapted, for the stage: "Harold & Maude," "Footloose," "Little Women," "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," "Sweet Smell of Success," "Saturday Night Fever," "Fame," "Flashdance," "The Lion King," "Hairspray" and "The Mambo Kings."

There's even talk of turning "Rocky" into a musical if all the legal knots can be untied.

Chorus: "The Stallion's dopey and he's chunky, and he's a mobster's flunky, but Apollo's way too cocky, he best beware of Rocky!"

And if they're going to do "Rocky," can "Forrest Gump" be far behind? Can't you just see the big twirling neon box of chocolates descending from the rafters?

If they're going to keep mining films for stage material, a few adaptations I'd like to see:

"Fast Times at Ridgemont High: the Musical"

"Risky Business: When Joel Met Lana"

"Pulp Fiction: the Musical"

"The Silence of the Lambs: the Opera!"

And a surefire hit:

"Behind the Green Door: the Musical."

***

[MagicToDo82]

Posted: 1/13/05 at 1:18pm

"Fast Times at Ridgemont High: The Musical" - Actually, of all the ideas I've heard, that's far from the worst.

Richard Roeper is my hero today! For realizing that the "You won't succeed on Broadway" number was "brazenly un-PC" - yes! Finally! Someone gets it! It's Python, people.:)

[timote316]

Posted: 1/13/05 at 2:02pm

That was a good review, until the ***

Anyhoo, glad to hear Spamalot is going great!

[FOAnatic]

Posted: 1/13/05 at 3:48pm

Glad I got my tix for Broadway!

And to add to the list...I still say "The First Wives Club: the musical" would be a SURE FIRE HIT!