A Bit Creepy: Spamalot @ the Paramount

True story! The other afternoon we were IMing about some important work-related stuff with our friend Scott G. and he asked if we'd seen Spamalot at the Paramount yet, and and we said, "Nope, you?" and it turned out he had, so he started to tell us about it and we said -- in a flash of brilliance -- "Hey, would you mind if this ended up on Seattlest?"

So you’ve been in a touring Broadway show for a few months…let’s say it’s Spamalot. You get a bit bored saying, “You killed eight wedding guests in all!” the same way, night after night. So you draw out a line here…do a take to the audience…an exaggerated shrug…a “bit”…and it gets a laugh in Phoenix. So you do it again in Houston maybe a tad longer this time. And before you know it, the smart, skillful direction of Mike Nichols starts to look more like a Sheboygan Community Players production. Welcome to “bit creep.”

Now, we are as much a laugh-whore as the next guy. Before you say it, Yes, we know that it’s Monty Python, and that there is an inherent silliness in the production from the get-go. But key to the success of Python -- what separates it from, say Benny Hill or professional wrestling -- is that it is smart and silly at the same time. Bit creep dumbs it down.

Some bits did work. The Head Knight Who Says “Ni” announced that they no longer said “Ni,” but now say “Ecky-ecky-ecky-ecky-pikang-zoom-boing...EEEEE-ven flowwwww…thoughts arrive like butterflies…” (Seattle likes its PJ homeboys, plus it had a certain meta appeal.) And Darryl Semira showed a remarkable resistance to bit creep in his role as Patsy (among others). While Arthur sings his “I’m All Alone” soliloquy with servant Patsy next to him, Semira resists the temptation to mug. His subtle, confused look is funnier than a vaudevillian “Whaaaa?” take.

The audience was standing at the end ("A big Seattle thank you!"). But let’s draw the line at being bit-creep enablers, and stop laughing at the broad, obvious bits. Save it for AFV.