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COPYRIGHT 2005 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
Silliness is an assertion of youthfulness, a playful raspberry blown at everything that weighs us down--history, theology, psychology, and, especially, mortality. If you're looking for a theme to the inspired antics of "Spamalot" (at the Shubert)--a musical that is, according to the marquee, "lovingly ripped off" from the movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"--you'll find it on a twenty-five-dollar T-shirt that's for sale in the lobby: "i'm not dead yet . . .," it says. The catchphrase, which is intoned throughout the evening by plague-ridden corpses, by dragooned soldiers, and even by an amputee knight, is an impudent anthem of comedy: an act of defiance, not distraction. Caprice is hard, heroic work, and King Arthur (Tim Curry) speaks for zanies of every era when he sings, "For life is quite absurd, / And death's the final word. / You must always face the curtain with a bow!" In the absence of divine certainty, the director Mike Nichols and his deft assembly of Merry-Andrews have stage-managed their own act of grace, calling down from the heaven of their imaginations a taste of youth's eternal spring. "Spamalot" is a gambol, and no mistake.
The show is the brainchild of the former Python Eric Idle, who wrote the book and lyrics and shares musical credit with John Du Prez. The only other Python imported into the proceedings is John Cleese, who is present as the petulant and condescending voice of God--a role he was born...
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