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The Lady of the Lake (Caroline Bowman) appears with her Laker Girls.
King Arthur (Steve McCoy) listens as Brother Maynard (Thomas Demarcus) reads how to defeat the Killer Rabbit in ‘Monty Python’s Spamalot.’
SCRANTON — You could learn a lot from “Spamalot.” You could learn the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow (both African and European), you could learn how to defeat a most vicious foe that has nasty, big, pointy teeth, and, most importantly, you could learn how to really, truly belly laugh, which is something the audience learned tenfold as Monty Python’s “Spamalot” kicked off a weekend of performances at the Scranton Cultural Center Friday, April 8.
It was an outrageous, colorful show that used the cult classic “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” as a base upon which to further the fun, inappropriateness — particularly during Sir Robin’s song, “You Won’t Succeed on Broadway” — and brilliance of the six-person comedy troupe known as Monty Python.
But don’t think that this irreverent show is just flying by the seat of its pants to get a laugh. At its core, “Spamalot” has an extremely talented cast, namely its Lady of the Lake, played by Caroline Bowman, who has the pipes, stage presence and beauty to make it far on the Great White Way. Bowman played perfectly off “Spamalot’s” bumbling leading lad, King Arthur (Steve McCoy), who was a delight to watch on his quest for the Holy Grail with his merry band of misfits, the Knights of the Round Table.
Along the way, they met many characters who tried to stand in their way, namely the sassy French, the diabolical Knights Who Say Ni, the overly brave Black Knight and a very fierce rabbit. Many parts of the show were right from “The Holy Grail,” and aside from “Knights of the Round Table,” “Brave Sir Robin” and “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” from “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” film, “Spamalot” featured fun original music like “The Song That Goes Like This” and “His Name Is Lancelot,” which told us that the legendary knight “bats for the other team.”
“Spamalot” offered plenty of laughs and little nuances to thrill hardcore fans, and those not as schooled in the art of the Pythons were still able to keep up because the play is a completely different animal from the movie, especially since King Arthur and his knights do indeed find the Holy Grail in the most unlikely of places: Under the seat of an audience member, with nary a policeman in sight to interfere.