Do Clark County’s young thespians even know what Spam is? Or that Monty Python wasn’t really a snake?
“I haven’t, until just recently,” said Owen Gebhard, a high school sophomore, who’s done his comedy homework and discovered, “It’s got a lot of crazy humor. Some is pure slapstick but some is so random — it just doesn’t make much sense. That’s why it’s so funny.”
“I had to ask some questions,” said Aidan Hefely, a fourth-grader. “After that it was super hilarious.”
Clearly this important cultural knowledge is not getting lost. It’s being handed down the generations at Metropolitan Performing Arts in Hazel Dell, where 26 young actors, singers and dancers are readying a kid-appropriate version of “Spamalot” for its Friday debut.
If You Go
What: “Monty Python’s Spamalot: Young@Part Edition,” by Eric Idle and John Du Prez, directed by Kris Heller.
When: 7:30 p.m. March 29; 2 and 7 p.m. March 30; 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. March 31.
Where: Brunish Theater (fourth floor), 1111 S.W. Broadway, Portland.
Cost: $17.75; $15.75 for students; a $28.50 VIP ticket gets you a premiere reserved seat, a keepsake Polaroid photo on stage with King Arthur and the Lady of the Lake, and show souvenir.
More info: https://www.portland5.com/brunish-theatre/events/spamalot
Learn More
Metropolitan Performing Arts: http://www.metropolitanperformingarts.org/
“There are still a lot of, ‘Oh I get it!’ moments where it’s just kind of dawning on them,” said director Kris Heller. “I love seeing that.”
Yes, you got that right: there’s now a reworked, abridged, child-appropriate version of “Spamalot,” the ridiculous musical comedy based on the ridiculous film “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” It joins a trend of student-level stage adaptations, letting younger troupes take on versions of the classics — and letting aging creators like Eric Idle, the musical Python who translated “Holy Grail” to the stage, keep raking in the dough. In recent years Metropolitan and similar groups have offered fare like “Annie, Junior,” “Into the Woods, Junior” and even “Chicago, the High School Edition.”
This one is titled “Monty Python’s Spamalot: Young@Part Edition.” Like the grown-up version, which won the 2005 Tony Award for best musical, it’s subtitled as “lovingly ripped off from” the 1975 Python movie about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and features many of the same misadventures and encounters — like rude Frenchmen, knights who say “Ni,” a killer rabbit and a plague victim who’s not quite dead yet.
It also adds swanky nightclub entertainment from the Lady of the Lake and her Laker Girls, and even borrows Idle’s “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” from “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” — an arguably superior and far more outrageous film. Don’t hold your breath for a kid’s version of “Life of Brian.”
Famous lines
Many of us can quote Python, line by line — but in this case, a few famous lines have been softened for children. How can the peasants tell this Arthur fellow is really a king? Because he hasn’t got “dung” all over him. (This reporter’s college history professor called that line — in its original form — an accurate description of life in the Dark Ages.)
Some other famous and slightly outrageous lines are unchanged, but we won’t reveal them here. You’ll have to take the Bridge of Death, over the Gorge of Eternal Peril, this weekend to Portland’s small Brunish Theater to hear what’s been deleted, what’s been revised and what still slaps you in the face like a wet fish from Finland.
But we will add that this “Spamalot” achieves a gender balance completely missing from “Holy Grail.” Kiara Kennington is a show-stopping Lady of the Lake and strong foil for Owen’s pompous-yet-frustrated King Arthur, and many of the Knights of the Round Table are played by girls.
Director Heller said she’s even reinserted, visually and briefly, a couple of characters who were eliminated from the “Young@Part” edition — including the Black Knight who receives “a flesh wound,” and Herbert, the fey prince who’s supposed to get married and inherit land but would “rather just sing.”
“We’re an accepting-of-everybody troupe,” Heller said. Some of the joy of staging this play, she said, is its Bridge of Laughs between parents who grew up loving this weird British comedy and children who are just learning it.
On Broadway
Why downtown Portland for this Vancouver show? It’s the eternal problem of finding a venue north of the river, Metropolitan executive director Barbara Richardson said. She’s been surprised to find the Brunish more affordable than some school auditoriums in Clark County, she said — plus, when you rent the Brunish, the room is entirely yours for the week. There’s no need to share it with daytime school use.
“We love putting on a show at the Brunish,” Richardson added, “because it feels like we’re playing in the big city, on Broadway.”
