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October 19, 2014:

DOING THE HULA AND CATCHING UP WITH SPAMALOT

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, considering that I knew a few folks who were in Spamalot on Broadway, and considering that its musical director was a dear friend, it is rather astonishing to me that I never saw it.  I was continually offered house seats and yet there was just something that made me not want to go.  I like Monty Python and enjoyed the film, so I’m not sure where this feeling was coming from.  And I love Mike Nichols and the cast was pretty terrific.  And yet I kept staying away.  They’ve done the show several times out here, where the productions have all gotten raves even though they were direct copies of the Broadway production.  In other words, the directors and choreographers all got rave reviews for recreating the work of others.  Many of these productions don’t even credit the people who did the original work unless they have to contractually.  But last night, I finally rectified the Spamalot situation by going to the Candlelight Dinner Theatre in Claremont to see our very own Chelsea Emma Franko in it.  Now, this is mostly a non-Equity theater but I’d attended one other show there and they did a good job – although aping the original production.  For Spamalot, they did credit the original choreographer and stated clearly that his work was being recreated.

The traffic at five-thirty on a Saturday was beyond belief.  It was disgusting and, more importantly, completely pointless.  It began in earnest right after Pasadena and stayed bumper to bumper at speeds of twenty miles an hour until about twelve miles before Claremont.  Then, all of a sudden, we could go eighty.  What happened to all those cars?  They feel into an abyss?  It just makes no sense on any level (level, spelled backwards) and a forty-five minute drive took an hour and ten minutes.  I arrived at about six-twenty, was shown to my seat at a table of eight quite close to the stage.  I had the halibut, which was very good.  I met my tablemates and then at about ten after eight, the show began.

The first thing one must say is that they used tracks.  There’s no room for them to have a lot of live musicians.  I’m sure the tracks were either recorded at the behest of the licensing folks or they took them from the album recording and probably recorded all the extra bits at those sessions.  But it worked pretty well, although tracks are not beloved of the actors and I, as an audience member, certainly don’t love them.

So, Spamalot.  It’s not like you don’t know what you’re going to get.  And get it you do.  Some of it is very amusing, especially the stuff that’s ported over directly from the film.  The new bits are clever, and the one thing they got absolutely right was keeping each act at slightly under an hour.  Other musical comedies would be well advised to do the same.  The King Arthur was very good, and Chelsea did herself proud as The Lady of the Lake.  Some of the other cast members were fine, and a few were not quite up to the task of being Python-esque, although none were bad.  I’m sure the Broadway cast had madcap fun with all the bits.  In any case, I laughed frequently and by the middle of act two it began to wear thin to me, even though the act was slightly under an hour.  When you’re doing nothing but spoofery it’s really hard because you have nothing else to hang onto – no characters to care about, no real forward momentum for the show – just a succession of funny bits and songs that make fun of themselves.  The original choreography is fun if a little relentless, and I’m sure the staging aped the original – but it was very well done and the audience and I had a good time.

I stayed and chatted with Chelsea (she’s in the next Kritzerland show) and her new boyfriend, who was also in Spamalot – he’s a very nice chap.  The ride home actually took only forty minutes.

Prior to all that, I’d gotten about seven hours of sleep, got up, did a three-mile jog, had some poached eggs on an English muffin, picked up a couple of packages, then came home.  I did a bit of work on the computer and then sat on my couch like so much fish.

Yesterday, I watched the first twenty minutes of David Cronenberg’s Shivers (They Came from Within).  It was his first film and it was quite the debut of his peculiar take on things.  The transfer, which is advertised as “digitally restored” and supervised by David Cronenberg, is a sad thing to see.  I’ve read the camera negative has gone missing (same thing with Nudie Musical).  But I’ve also read that an actual print was used for the transfer, rather than a CRI – that seems odd and hard to believe, but whatever it was, I simply need absolute proof that Mr. Cronenberg actually did supervise this abomination because I simply do not believe it.  The boards are rife with the usual suspects bellyaching because the print used was the US R-rated cut – so it’s missing seventeen whole seconds of gore – that’s all they care about.  They’re fine with the transfer, which just goes to show you they really know nothing about anything.  They go on and on about DNR on great looking transfers where none has been used, but here they say nothing  – well there is NO detail in this transfer in any mid to long shot, and not much more in the close-ups.  Every texture is smooth with little to no grain.  There’s a shot of a telephone and you literally cannot see the dial.  You can’t see the typing on a piece of typing paper because the whites are so contrasty and blown out.  Compared to the DVD, which has a lot of texture, better color, and where you can actually see the dial of the phone or the design on Barbara Steele’s robe, the Blu-ray is pink and just horrible looking.  Until I hear it from Mr. Cronenberg himself, I’m not buying it.  He may have given some advice or seen it pre the work that was done – who knows?  But it’s not good.

Today, I shall mostly relax.  I’ll definitely jog, I’ll do the hula, I’ll eat, and I’ll watch movies and be lazy.  I’ll do the HULA?  Where did that come from?  I swear, I just don’t know where this palaver resides in my little brain.

Tomorrow, I’ll be getting everything ready for our launch partay at the El Portal Theatre.  We have about seventy people confirmed and I may yet hear from some folks.  I do have to alphabetize the list for easy check in.  At five I pick up the wine from The Federal (they made us a GREAT deal), and then the food will show up and we’ll get everything set up and ready for the seven o’clock start.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, alphabetize a list and relax.  Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them.  So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, after which I shall do the hula.

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