Beckoning audiences on a whimsical jaunt to always look on the bright side of life, the touring revival of “Spamalot” is especially winning for its unabashed determination to deliver on all manners of silliness.
Rafters-packed on the opening night of a quick week run of singing, joking and prancing through Segerstrom Hall, this show is a potent, cheery stepchild of half-century old Monty Python humor.
The musical is powered by the skits stitched around the irreverent telling of King Arthur’s search for the Holy Grail in the British comedy troupe’s beloved 1975 breakout movie.
Riffs on that comedy were enhanced in 2004 by former Python Eric Idle, with co-writer John Du Prez. Their sly and winning songwriting deftly embraced more than a wink-wink, nudge-nudge of shrewd parody and unabashed social incorrectness.
This mash-up especially works as the musical develops a secondary theme, spoofing the iconography of the Broadway musical itself.
There are meta numbers like “The Song That Goes Like This,” “Diva’s Lament (Whatever Happened to My Part?)” — and, most pointedly, “You Won’t Succeed on Broadway.” (A hint about the eyebrow-raising subject matter in this one can be detected in the unlikeliest rhyming lyric “It’s just a small percentile/who enjoys a dancing Gentile.”
These spot-on numbers are acidly over-dramatized in the singing, with plenty of stylized references and riffs on things of the moment tossed in. Even last year’s tiresome “6-7” meme gets channeled.
At Tuesday’s opening, and in probably every performance, the material in “Spamalot” generated pre-ordained, nostalgic goodwill in the audience.
Just the initial sighting of two characters entering the stage to the clippety-clop sounds of coconut shells — in place of horses, they trot along to these charming sound effects — elicited cheers of happy recognition from the highest reaches of the auditorium.
A big part of the fun in this Tony Award winning best musical is seeing how some of the immortalized comic improbabilities from the original TV episodes and movies are referenced.
The indefatigable, albeit dismembered Black Knight — “none shall pass” — a flying cow, the Holy Hand Grenade… many boxes get checked.
Perhaps the ultimate version of this happens during the Act 1 ending, a showstopper culminating with the song “Run Away.”
This is from the movie’s fabled “taunting” scene where Arthur and his Knights are insulted by a French soldier with juvenile gibes: “your mother was a hamster, your father smelt of elderberries.”
In “Spamalot,” the verbal bombardment mushroom clouds into a madcap hodge-podge action sequence, with every French archetypal cliché joining the fray, from Napoleon and a baker carrying baguettes to a Marcel Marceau-esque mime and can-can dancers.
Overall, starting with some of the key performances, the touring production gives a good enough account of itself.
Pulling everything together is actor Major Attaway in the lead role of King Arthur. With a pedigree across TV and theater — his chief Broadway credit includes a turn as The Genie in “Aladdin” — Attaway is at times an avuncular and even courtly Arthur, capable of being both imperious and soulful.
Also (at least in this performance) when engaging with the Knight of Ni and his posse, Attaway amusingly violated the fourth wall with a stint of giggles.
Amanda Robles as The Lady of the Lake packs a vocal powerhouse that is both legitimately in place as well as spoofily on display.
The description of the female operatic singing style Bel Canto was amusingly rearranged in the golden days of Broadway to “Can Belt-o” and that certainly describes both Robles’ sizable singing and her glitzy-attired appearances.
Also on the good side of things is Sean Bell’s lanky Sir Robin, the not-quite-so-brave, armor-soiling knight. Bell anchors the ensemble number “You Won’t Succeed on Broadway” with his winsome manner expanding with enthusiastic zeal as the number burgeons into the most unexpected dance breaks.
The technical production itself is a bit balky at times.
Perennially during Segerstrom’s Tuesday opening nights, musicals seem to suffer early on from lyrics-muddling sound levels and that was the case here until things snapped in by the fourth number, “Come With Me.”
Additionally, some of the visual scenery projected behind and above the set doesn’t always embrace but overwhelms the acting below.
This was particularly irritating late in the musical as Arthur and his Knights confront the dreaded killer rabbit. Over-micing of the looming Tim the Enchanter, against a psychedelic overboil of bright, surreal colorings on the screens, washed out much of the scene below.
If the week is whizzing by and a strong Segerstrom presale make “Spamalot” a difficult schedule fit, the show will settle in at the Hollywood Pantages for a three-week run from late March into early April.
At either locale, it’s worth it for an entertainment that’s definitely “not dead yet.”
‘Spamalot’
Rating: 3 stars (from four possible)
When: Through Sunday, Feb. 22. 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday
Where: Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa
Tickets: $44-$174
Information: 949-556-2787; ww.scfta.org
When: March 24-April 12. 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays.
Where: Hollywood Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles.
Tickets: $57-$112
Information: 323-468-1700; pantages-theater.com/hollywood-los-angeles