Spamalot-Fun and Irreverence
Spamalot, a wonderful romp into insanity and non sequiturs, manages to poke fun at just about everyone and everything. Performed by the Theatre of Dare it’s worth the price of admission…and it doesn’t cost all that much.
The play, based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail, retains all of the original madness of the movie.
The iconic, classic scenes are all here.
The relative calling out to the undertaker to haul Not-Dead-Yet Fred away. And Fred telling anyone who will listen, “But I’m not dead yet.” In the stage version, Fred gets up and dances a bit.
This is 90 minutes of mayhem at its best.
The Lady of the Lake—the grantor of Excalibur to Arthur—is beautiful and wonderfully self-absorbed. Although she uses her feminine wiles to manipulate Dennis the Peasant into becoming Sir Galahad, as we learn at the end of the play, her plan all along was to marry King Arthur.
The Knights of the Round Table are given wonderfully descriptive names.
There’s the Dashingly Handsome Sir Galahad; the Homicidally Brave Lancelot, Sir Robin who slew the vicious Chicken of Bristol and who personally wet himself at the Battle of Badon Hill, and the strangely flatulent Sir Bedevere.
What little plot there is centers on the search for the Holy Grail which is quickly found when it turns out that the Lady of the Lake has it. After that it becomes a question of returning the chalice, although where it is supposed to go is never made clear.
But that’s ok because what Spamalot is really about are the personal quests of the Knights of the Round Table.
Sir Robin dreams of producing a Broadway play. Sir Galahad finds his life mate in Herbert the imprisoned son of a noble. And Arthur finds his true live in the Lady of the Lake.
The Theatre of Dare is a community theatre group and this is community theatre at its absolute best. Three performances left: Friday and Saturday evening and a final matinee on Sunday, February 26. All performances are at the COA Manteo theater.
