Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
You’ll laugh a lot at Spamalot.
If you decide to see “Monty Python’s Spamalot” at the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, you’ll quickly figure out where the Monty Python cognoscenti are sitting.
Fans of the great British comedy troupe hoot, holler or scream whenever classic Python bits and characters pop up in this 2005 Tony Award-winning Broadway musical based on the 1975 movie “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” (The book and lyrics are by original Python member Eric Idle, with music by Idle and John Du Prez.)
The French Taunters get a reaction. So do the Knights who say “Ni,” Tim the Enchanter and the quickly limbless yet defiant Black Knight. And, of course, King Arthur and his knightly crew (Robin, Lancelot, Galahad, Bedevere) have the whole Arthurian legend thing going for them.
Yet you don’t need to know much at all about Monty Python or “Camelot” to surrender to the nonstop hilarity of MNM Productions’ “Spamalot.” Now a resident company at the Kravis Center, MNM has kicked off a season that also will include “Company,” “La Cage aux Folles” and “Little Shop of Horrors” with a musical that showcases its strengths.
Director-choreographer Kimberly Dawn Smith, who also staged “Hair” for MNM at the Kravis, creates Broadway-style numbers that showcase the dancers’ technique and flair for humor expressed in movement. Musical director Paul Reekie commands a fine, seven-piece band that not only plays beautifully but becomes another character interacting with the cast.
And what a cast. The 20 actors all wear mikes, but many have voices so big that they could probably skip that bit of technical enhancement. Certainly that’s true of Johnbarry Green, the show’s virile yet goofy King Arthur; Joshua McKinney, whose brash Sir Lancelot hides a much softer (and flashier) side; and Laura Hodos, whose glittering, confident Lady of the Lake would give the late Ethel Merman a run for her money in the powerhouse pipes department.
Green’s Arthur has an awesome posse in Mike Westrich’s cheeky, politically confrontational Dennis Galahad; Sahid Pabon’s show-biz-besotted Sir Robin; Pierre Tannous’ digestively challenged Sir Bedevere; and Andrew Shultz’s loyal Patsy, the aide who supplies his self-absorbed king with counsel, companionship and the clip-clop of coconut shells as his master mimes riding a horse.
MNM’s “Spamalot” is an often riotous, powerfully sung, wonderfully executed show. Someone with the production posted a picture on Facebook after the first preview, showing an empty theater with water under a few seats. He captioned it this way: “The audience laughed so hard they peed.”
That’s about right.