Spamalot

I've been a fan of Monty Python since I first saw the television series in high school, and I have a soft spot for King Arthur: Disney's 1963 animated feature The Sword in the Stone was the first movie I ever remember seeing in the theater. Plus, I remember enjoying the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail when it came out in 1975. So I was really looking forward to seeing the stage version.

But I learned an important lesson Sunday afternoon as I watched the touring production of the 2005 Tony winner for best musical, Monty Python's Spamalot: despite my affection for the Arthurian legend and wacky British humor, a little bit of Python goes a very, very long way.

While everyone else around me in a packed Providence Performing Arts Center was laughing hysterically, I just found it mildly amusing. The book, by former Python Eric Idle, seemed so flimsy, the characters not terribly engaging, the plot kind of disjointed. I wanted more about King Arthur and his knights and the quest for the Holy Grail, and less bawdy humor involving private parts, fewer stereotypes and pointless plot detours. (Ok, at this point you're probably thinking, well, I guess you didn't want Monty Python! Maybe I just don't find it as funny as I once did).

Spamalot starts off well, with Michael Siberry's King Arthur recruiting his knights of the Round Table: the dashingly handsome Sir Galahad, the homicidally brave Sir Lancelot, and Sir Robin, who isn't quite as brave as Sir Lancelot. It was pretty funny when Arthur tries a persuade a skeptical Dennis Galahad, played by Ben Davis, to join him. Dennis is clearly not convinced about the divine rights of kings and doesn't quite buy Arthur's story about his power deriving from the sword Excalibur given to him by The Lady of the Lake.

For me, some jokes went on too long, like when Arthur and his knights try to enter a French castle guarded by some incredibly lewd sentries. The mime and Foreign Legionnaires were funny. And I liked the giant Trojan Rabbit. But the taunting and bawdy humor were just too much. I wasn't offended, I just found it tiresome after awhile. That's part of Spamalot's problem: it doesn't know when to stop.

Some scenes really don't move the plot along. Why would the Knights who say Ni demand that Arthur put on a Broadway musical before they'll give him safe passage through the "dark and very expensive forest?" It's just a device for Sir Robin to sing "You Won't Succeed on Broadway if You Don't Have Any Jews." (Apparently, Idle and John Du Prez, who wrote the music and lyrics, think that songs about Jews and gay people are the height of hilarity.)

It was pretty cute the way the choreography parodied Fiddler on the Roof. And being Jewish, I think I laughed harder than most people in the audience at lines like "Your knights might be nice boys but sadly we're all goys." While James Beaman was fine as Sir Robin, I'm spoiled. I loved David Hyde Pierce in Curtains, and I sat there thinking how great it would have been to see him when he played Sir Robin in the Broadway production of Spamalot.

On the other hand, I didn't really find any humor when Sir Lancelot, played by Patrick Heusinger, goes to rescue what he thinks is a damsel in distress, only to find out it's a very effeminate prince, then is outed in a song and dance number called "His Name is Lancelot." It just struck me as a cheap joke that played on offensive stereotypes about gay people.

I didn't think the cast really reached the level of zaniness that would have made Spamalot more memorable. As King Arthur, I wish Siberry had been a stronger presence, more wacky and over the top. Of all the knights, I thought that Davis, as Sir Galahad, did the best job of making the role his own. I liked the way he flipped his long blond locks or flashed a smile in the best matinee idol fashion.

There were things that I liked in Spamalot. Tim Hatley's cartoonish set design, including the giant foot of God that comes down to send Arthur and his band of knights on their quest, really evokes the spirit of Monty Python. And it was pretty inspired to see Camelot depicted as a Middle Ages version of Las Vegas. I enjoyed the banter between King Arthur and his trusted servant, Patsy, played by Jeff Dumas. One of the funniest lines in Spamalot comes when Arthur realizes that they do have some Jews, or at least one, because Patsy is a member of the tribe.

Some of the songs, especially "Find Your Grail" and "Always Look on the Brighter Side of Life," were great. And how could I not love Esther Stillwell as The Lady in the Lake singing the Andrew Lloyd Webber parody "The Song that Goes Like This." (Yes, it's the first time I've seen someone who shares my first name on stage).

It's been years since I've seen the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. But as I was leaving the theater, I heard some people say that Spamalot follows the movie pretty closely. So I guess if you loved the movie, you'd probably love the musical.

As for me, I left the theater wondering how Spamalot could have won the Tony over an infinitely more memorable The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. I will remember those elementary school spellers long after I've forgotten these knights of the Round Table.

One state, one book

I think that books, to a greater extent than any other medium, have the power to take you someplace you've never been. Before I went to Israel for the first time, I read dozens of books about the country. I absorbed so much, that one of my friends remarked it sounded like I'd already come back from my trip.

So here's something for my fellow armchair travelers: The Columbia Spectator, the student newspaper of Columbia University, is compiling a list of 50 books that "capture the essence of each state, all while telling a great story along the way." Thanks to The Millions for the tip.

The series starts with Alabama, and not surprisingly, the pick is Harper Lee's 1960 classic To Kill A Mockingbird, described as offering "one of the best representations of courage and compassion in literature."

The article says that "Alabama has often been less famous than infamous for its past in the Civil Rights Movement, and this stigma remains today in the eyes of many northerners. Through Scout’s tale, we see not only the bravery of Atticus Finch and his defendant Tom Robinson, but the complex nature of segregation-era life."

A new entry will come out every Thursday, and I'm assuming next week will be Alaska. If it is, my vote would go to Going to Extremes by Joe McGinnis. Published in 1980, it's an account of a year McGinniss spent exploring America's far north. I love travel writing, and this is a great example. By the end of the book, I'd learned a lot about what makes the state unique and why people choose to live there.

But my guess is the paper will pick John McPhee's well-regarded 1977 book about the Alaska wilderness, Coming Into the Country, a title that I once owned but alas, never got around to reading. I'll be checking back Thursday to see if my hunch was correct.

Theater talk

Now, I feel like I can be an even more in-the-know Broadway theatergoer.

My local PBS station, WSBE, has started showing Theater Talk, produced by WNET in New York and cohosted by New York Post theater columnist Michael Riedel. He describes the show as "a sort of Meet the Press of Broadway. We want viewers to feel that they are sitting around with theater insiders at a Broadway hangout, talking, gossiping and joking about the theater.''

The guests on last night's program were Ian McShane and Raul Esparza, currently starring in The Homecoming. It was a great conversation about playwright Harold Pinter, about both actors' careers and about the future of straight plays on Broadway. I just wish their costar, the very talented Eve Best, has been a guest, too.

Upcoming programs will feature Chazz Palminteri from the one-man show A Bronx Tale, Irish actors Ciaran Hinds and Conleth Hill from The Seafarer, and Rock 'n' Roll playwright Tom Stoppard. Even though I won't get to see A Bronx Tale, The Seafarer or The Homecoming, and I didn't like Rock 'n' Roll very much, I know I'll enjoy the interviews.

Plus, I know this is totally superficial, but when I was watching Raul Esparza, the first thing I thought was, "Wow, he has really big, beautiful eyes." And the picture above doesn't do them justice.

If the show doesn't air on your PBS station, you can watch the latest episode at the Theater Talk Web site. Plus, you can download the audio from previous shows as podcasts. But you really should watch it, especially the current show, just for Raul's eyes.

For one brief shining moment

Maybe it's because I'm going to see the touring production of Spamalot on Sunday, or maybe it was Barack Obama getting the endorsement of Caroline and Ted Kennedy, but I was thinking about the Kennedys and the origin of the Camelot myth and what it says about the theater.

I always thought about John F. Kennedy and Camelot in terms of politics. It never occurred to me before this week, but the connection may have been a watershed event in the history of American theater as well. I mean, how many times since then has a reference to a Broadway show entered our cultural vocabulary in such a meaningful way? Not many, I bet.

Here's the background: "A week after the assassination, Jacqueline Kennedy spent four hours talking to the journalist Theodore H. White. She acknowledged that before going to bed most evenings, Kennedy would listen to the melodramatic Broadway song ''Camelot'' on his antiquated Victrola. His favorite lines were: ''Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment, that was known as Camelot.''

Ok, maybe "Aquarius" from Hair is officially the last cultural reference taken from the theater, as kind of a shorthand for the youth culture of the mid to late '60s, but I don't think it has as much resonance 40 years later.

And I can't think of a Broadway show, or any recent musical, that could evoke the same feeling today. Sure, Wicked was featured on an episode of Ugly Betty, and on the Sopranos, they talked about going to see Jersey Boys. But it's not the same.

The way Camelot became shorthand for the Kennedy years reminds me of something I heard on the PBS series Broadway: The American Musical. Show tunes once were America's Top 40. And for one brief shining moment, a work of musical theater had the power to capture the popular imagination.

My kind of stimulus

Thanks to Hacking Netflix for passing along this tongue-in-cheek item from Dateline Hollywood: "Congress and President Bush agree on Netflix rebates for Americans during writers strike."

The "rebate" to be sent out by the U.S. government will amount to three free Netflix rentals. Apparently there was a "disturbing" poll by Entertainment Weekly showing that, gasp, Americans were watching less television and reading more books! But the article quotes an expert who says he doesn't think it'll have much of an impact on Americans' newly discovered reading habits: “They’ll probably watch all three DVDs in one night, and the next evening, they’ll be reading again, or playing board games with their families.”

As someone who tries to squeeze in time for watching television AND reading books, I have to say that the writers' strike hasn't affected me all that much. Sure, I don't have much to look forward to on my DVR: no fresh episodes of Desperate Housewives or Brothers and Sisters or 30 Rock. But Lost is starting up again tonight, and I'm a loyal Netflix subscriber, so I'm never without entertainment.

No, I don't own stock in the company or work there or know anyone who works there. And yes, I know about the company's reputation for "throttling," delaying the shipment of new movies for heavy renters. Frankly, it hasn't affected me. I send back my three movies on Monday, and by Friday, I have three more ready for weekend viewing. As someone who spends a good portion of her life running errands, what Netflix has done is free me from the tyranny of late fees and constant trips to the video store.

I can still remember how thrilling it felt, in May 2003, when I finished watching Todd Haynes' homage to 1950s melodrama, Far from Heaven, sealed it up in the red-and-white Netflix envelope, and dropped it in the mailbox at the end of my street. It was a liberating experience to know that I didn't have to drive down to the video store to return it.

I think my movie and tv-watching has gotten a lot more adventurous since I signed up for Netflix. I watch more old movies, documentaries, more foreign films, things I probably would have passed right by at the video store, like Polish director Krzystof Kieslowski's trilogy Red, White and Blue. I caught up on the first five years of The Sopranos on DVD and I'm working my way through Sex and the City now. I've loved both of them.

Actually, I think it's more enoyable watching these shows on DVD than it is to watch them from week to week. I find that I'm much more caught up in the characters and their stories when I can see three or four episodes one after another. My biggest problem now is trying to decide what to start after my Sex and the City marathon ends. Sadly, I'm already halfway through the final season.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Today marks the 15th anniversary of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," which forces gay and lesbian Americans to hide their sexual orientation if they want to serve in the military. Time magazine has an article about it.

I have to admit that when President Bill Clinton announced the policy shortly after his inauguration in 1993, I didn't give it much thought. I didn't work with anyone who was openly gay. I didn't have any friends who were openly gay. I knew that Clinton, having grown up in the segregated South, saw it as a civil rights issue, but I wondered why he picked it to focus on so early in his first term. I didn't appreciate why it was so significant, and why "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was such a degrading policy.

Well, things have changed since then. Today, almost everyone I know works with someone or has friends or relatives who are openly gay or lesbian. I have close friends, colleagues, people I love and admire, who are gay. While things are far from perfect, as a society we have moved toward a greater understanding that a person's sexual orientation is something they're born with, and in the end, it's not a big deal, just part of what makes that person a unique individual.

I can't even comprehend how horrible, how suffocating it would be for someone I know and love to be in the closet, to fear what would happen to them if they came out. It's inhumane to expect someone to live that way. And the policy that I didn't give much thought to 15 years ago, today seems unfair, discriminatory, ridiculous and absolutely un-American.

There is no reason why, if someone wants to serve their country, they should be forced to hide something so basic about themselves. That's not what this country is supposed to be about. It goes against our values as an open, democratic, free, egalitarian nation. And I think it's a shame that the debate isn't framed that way.

While I've never been in the military, I have lived in a country - Israel - where gays serve openly. And no one would say that Israel doesn't have a strong army, that its soldiers don't face implacable enemies every bit as tough as those U.S. soldiers face in Iraq. During the year I spent in Israel, I felt totally secure that I had a strong, skilled army helping to keep me safe.

Here's what a gay ex-officer in the Israel Defense Forces had to say on the subject, and what Americans could learn from Israel. And here's a study from the Michael D. Palm Center on the impact of gays and lesbians serving openly in the Israeli army. The conclusion: "Our findings are that Israel’s decision to lift its gay ban had no impact on performance and that despite differences between the two cases, lessons from the Israeli experience are relevant for determining what would happen if the U.S. Congress and Pentagon lifted the American gay ban."

And here's a commentary from the late Sen. Barry Goldwater, arguing forcefully that the ban should be lifted. He says, in part, "Nobody thought that blacks or women could ever be integrated into the military. Many thought that an all-volunteer force could never protect our national interest. Well, it has, and despite those who feared the worst - I among them - we are still the best and will continue to be."

Passing the torch

I'm not sure whether it'll have much of an imapct, but I think it's pretty interesting that Caroline Kennedy endorsed Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.

For a progressive Democratic politician, being anointed the heir to John F. Kennedy is pretty much like finding the Holy Grail. I mean, how many people over the years have told Caroline that they got into politics because of her father? Countless, I'm sure. And every one of them, I'm sure, would love to have had her blessing. (Poor John Forbes Kerry even had the same initials. It didn't help).

I was struck by the forcefulness of Kennedy's opinion piece in Sunday's New York Times. Here's the quote that really stood out: "I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans."

Ok, I realize that Obama is running against Hillary Clinton, not Bill. Or maybe he is. Still, I couldn't help but wonder how Bill Clinton must have felt when he read that. Given Clinton's closeness to the Kennedy family over the years, he must have thought, Why Obama and not me? I mean it's like the unkindest cut of all. Just think of the ubiquitous picture of a teenage Clinton, delegate from Arkansas to the Boys Nation convention in July 1963, shaking hands with President Kennedy.

Here's what Bill Clinton said in 1998 at a dinner for the Kennedy Library Foundation: "I think I should begin by saying that for me this is not an obligation, it is an honor, not only because like every other member of my generation I was inspired by President Kennedy but because Hillary and Chelsea and I have been profoundly moved by the uncommon kindnesses of this family to ours."

I was at Clinton's first inauguration, in 1993, and I remember standing in front of the United States Capitol on a very cold January morning, in the largest crowd I'd ever been in. It was so exciting to be there, to be a part of history, to see the Capitol all decked out in red, white and blue bunting. There was a certain timeless quality to the whole ceremony. Someone standing near me said that her parents had been at Kennedy's inauguration, in January 1961.

Of course, everyone can recite a line or two from JFK's inaugural address: "Ask not what your country can do for you." "The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans." Those phrases are taught in school, they're part of our collective memory, right up there with "I have a dream" and "Fourscore and seven years ago."

When Clinton spoke, I was really straining for some sentence, some phrase, that I would always remember, that would become a part of history, just like John F. Kennedy's speech. But that moment never came. I don't remember one word of what he said. In fact, the only quote from Clinton that anyone can remember is, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

I can still remember snippets of Obama's keynote address to the Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2004. There was his slightly self-deprecating tone: "the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too." He talked about how we're not Red state America or Blue state America, but simply the United States of America: "We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we've got some gay friends in the Red States." And there was a nod to faith: "It is that fundamental belief: I am my brother’s keeper. I am my sister’s keeper that makes this country work."

After Clinton's inauguration, I figured that politicians simply didn't make memorable speeches anymore. Whatever you think about Obama as a candidate, he does renew my faith in great political oratory. People who compare him with Jesse Jackson are off base. I've heard Jackson, and he's a mesmerizing speaker. But his cadence and delivery come from the church. Obama sounds more like a traditional politician, but a politician in the JFK mold - someone who uses language to unite and inspire Americans.

The more I think about it, I can certainly see why Caroline Kennedy felt inspired to make her endorsement - and why she never felt so inspired to say the same things about Bill Clinton. (And don't get me started on Clinton's signing of the vile Defense of Marriage Act or "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," a move that enshrined discrimination as public policy).

Kennedy wrote that as a mother of three teenagers, she wants a president who will inspire young people. The generation that's coming of age today, she says, feels hopeless and disengaged. What's important is not so much that Obama reminds her of her father, but her sense that Obama represents a generational shift similar to the one that occurred when JFK succeeded Dwight Eisenhower. (If Obama is elected, for the first time in my life I'll be older than the president of the United States.)

I bet that contrast will become even more stark if Obama ends up as the Democratic nominee and John McCain wins the Republican nod. You go to McCain's Web site, and there's a giant picture of McCain. The first image you see on Obama's Web site is the youthful candidate surrounded by his loving, attractive family. I mean, look at that picture. This could be Kennedy/Nixon all over again.

As someone who's always been fascinated by the sixties, the endorsement made me think of a time in the early part of that decade when we were confident of our place in the world, the future looked limitless and America was on the cusp of change. (Go watch Hairspray right now). Are we there again? I don't know. But it's intriguing to think about.