On Valentine’s Day, my girlfriend surprised me with two tickets to go see Monty Python’s SPAMALOT out in Mesa, Arizona. I’ve been a huge Monty Python fan ever since my dad first showed me a sketch and my love of their odd style of comedy only grew as I saw more and more films and interviews by the troupe. I’ve been wanting to see the show ever since I heard it was in preproduction, but was unable to get tickets to it when I was in New York in 2006 and I’ve just barely missed it as work travel has taken me just outside of every city it’s been in since the tour began.
But last night, I finally got to see the show.
It definitely lived up to the expectations taking an irreverent approach to the musical theatre genre and repeating many of the great bits from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. While I thoroughly enjoyed the familiar jokes, my favorite moments of the show took place when Monty Python satirized the musical theatre genre itself. While I’m definitely a fan of musical theatre, I find myself enjoying the modern theatre a bit more. Shows like Spring Awakening, RENT, Avenue Q, The Who’s Tommy, or even Blood Brothers appeal to me a lot more than anything by Rogers & Hammerstein.
So when the show took a delightfully unexpected turn with The Song That Goes Like This, I was thrilled. In it, two characters describe the song that demonstrates their love. They highlight key changes, glances, embraces, and even an unwelcome length of the song. The audience loved it.
Why? Because it really was dead on. I can’t tell you how many shows I’ve seen that have played on the same convention and actually had a “song that goes like this.” Sure, it demonstrates the love between two characters, but couldn’t it be done differently?
Outside musical theatre, I’ve been reading several articles recently describing the death of the romantic comedy genre. They highlight the same jobs done by the female protagonists, the same settings, the same inciting incidents, the size of the dogs, the quirky best friends, the overzealous attempts for connection, etc. etc. etc. In other words, some modern viewers might like the film, but it’s the same story just in different wrapping paper causing many viewers to just get bored.
Spamalot works because it is fully aware of what it is doing and makes fun of the process itself.
My morale?
I know I rely way to heavily on my own existing habits or conventions and I think it is safe to say that sadly many of our organizations do as well. Sometimes we need to shake it all loose. We need to creative and challenge what we are doing and how we approach it. If we fail to do so, we become stale. We will die out.
If you have some time, I’d really encourage you to watch a documentary about one comic great doing just that. Comedian (2002) profiles Jerry Seinfeld as he scraps his entire comedy routine and starts again completely from scratch. It’s a fascinating example of someone moving beyond past success and charting a new path.