Review - Spamalot - 1/27/07

Spamalot

1/27/07 – 2:00pm

I never realized how many theatres were actually on 44^th street. It was a sight to behold when just standing there taking it in, which we had plenty of time to do waiting to get in! We had front balcony right seats (Playbill discount – booked a few months ago). They were not bad seats at all, except for the abnormally tall guy sitting directly in my view of stage center! But I do think that theater had the least amount of leg room out of all my visits so far.

Preface:

We are big Monty Python fans, so we have wanted to see this show for so long. I think I watched Holy Grail with my dad for the first time when I was 5 or 6, so you can get the picture. Chris fit in the family well when at his first Thanksgiving he started the whole table into reciting quotes! I could start a whole new blog post on the differences, good or bad, between the play and movie, but this is about the play.

Set: I loved it all! Very well done and kept in style with the original. However, we had heard a while ago that they did something with the llama credits, but didn’t see anything on our visit.

Costumes: Once again, very nice. I don’t know how you could really screw it up, but they didn’t.

Cast:

Jonathan Hadary (King Aurthur) – Job well done but he was quite a blah player in comparison to the rest of the cast. Now I’m not sure if the part was written like that, but I would have thought he would be the spotlight player. He was always on stage and had many songs, but everything sounded the same!

Marin Mazzie (Lady of the Lake) – I didn’t really like this part. At first it wasn’t too bad, but in the second act, the character was shoved in there. Marin had an amazing voice, and did a good job with the character I just didn’t find the point of it. However, for the straight male gender, be sure to sit in the balcony because the cleavage shots were very visible from up there. She is very well endowed and I don’t know how she stayed in those costumes!

Tom Deckman (Historian, Not Dead Fred, Prince Herbert, etc.) – He was amazing. Every character he played were spitting images of the movie version, esp. Prince Herbert.

David Hibbard (Patsy) - He was the show for me. His character performance made me laugh and smile the most. He had amazing comedic timing and reacted well with every other character. Patsy is not usually the main character, but he shined here!

Martin Moran (Sir Robin) – He reminds me of someone, and all night I thought and could not remember who. His character was well developed and he preformed well. “You Won’t Succeed on Broadway” was well sung, but I did not exactly think it needed to be in the show. I personally wasn’t offended, but I could see how someone was. They could have found a different angle.

Rick Holmes (Lancelot, French Taunter, Knight of Ni, Tim the Enchanter) – He played ALL of my favorite characters, and he did it VERY well!!! Loved him. His French Taunter had me in absolute hysterics. Some of his new lines for the part were awesome. I can’t believe they actually went that far and stated the obvious about the Lancelot character! Once again, something in theory they didn’t need, but it was well done. What a cutie he is!

Lewis Cleale (Galahad, Prince Herbert’s Father, Black Night) – Cleale did a very nice job. He nailed the Mud Village scene and made every Holy Grail fan happy! “The Song That Goes Like This” was funny, but I had seen it in Forbidden Broadway first so it kind of lost it’s funniness. His Black Night was funny, but I think they rushed through the scene too quickly (and left out my favorite line in the whole movie).

Jeffery Kuhn (Dennis’s Mother, Sir Bedevere)- His parts were not exactly the show stealers but he did a good job. Chris liked his interpretation on Bedevere but was really hoping to see the Witch scene.

Chorus, etc. – Everyone did a good job.

I really liked how they worked in the audience interaction (D101). Our guy looked like "The Crow" so it was very funny. Show was sold out I believe ( No empty seats in balcony at least). The playbill was hilarious and I really enjoyed reading it.

I tried to “stage door” for the first time, but it didn’t exactly go very well. As soon as we got to the door John Hadary flew out and just walked off (he did not look that short on stage!). There was no particular order there (no fence things), and no one knew who anyone was out of character, so we just left. I would have liked to meet Hibbard and Holmes. We were hungry and went right across the alley to Juniors. Overpriced (not that we didn’t expect that) and I think I got sick off the tuna, but over all not bad. I don’t see myself going back there though.

Final thoughts: We are very happy we got to see it, but it did not live up to our expectations. Maybe they were a little too high, but still. I will probably take my brother to see it, but other than that I don’t see myself returning.