Toronto Star, February 25, 2006
Martin Short, Spamalot to light up Mirvish stage
By: Richard Ouzounian
Get ready, Toronto: Ed Grimley and the Knights Who Say "Ni" are coming to town.
The Toronto Star has learned that Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me and Monty Python's Spamalot will both be part of the 2006-2007 Mirvish subscription season being announced at the Royal Alexandra Theatre on Tuesday morning.
The Hamilton-born Short will get things started in June with the pre-Broadway tryout of what is being called "a musical mock-autobiography." The book is by Short and Toronto playwright Daniel Goldfarb and the score is by the brilliant team behind Hairspray, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman.
Short, now 55, made his professional debut in the legendary Toronto production of Godspell, later going on to success in SCTV and on Saturday Night Live, as well as a thriving career onstage and in motion pictures.
Although people tend to forget his musical skills because of his awesome comic abilities, Short is a fine singer, having won a Tony Award for The Goodbye Girl, opposite Bernadette Peters and also having starred in the hit revival of Little Me, as well as appearing opposite Jason Alexander in the Los Angeles production of The Producers.
Shaiman and Wittman have provided Short with a bevy of musical numbers that bear intriguing titles like "Stepbrother de Jesus" and "Twelve-Step Pappy."
In addition to presenting what is being called "an improbable version of his life story," Short is expected to recreate some of his most famous characters, such as Ed Grimley and Jiminy Glick.
During his free time, of course, he'll be spending as much time as possible at the family cottage on Lake Rosseau in Muskoka, a place he said in a 2003 interview with the Star, "makes me feel at peace and as happy as I could possibly be."
And now for something completely different...Monty Python's Spamalot has been a smash hit on Broadway ever since it opened to rave reviews on Feb. 14 last year.
It was nominated for 14 Tony Awards and won three, including Best Musical and Best Director (Mike Nichols).
The show is billed as "a new musical lovingly ripped off from the motion picture Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and that pretty much sums it up.
Original Pythoneer Eric Idle provided the book and collaborated on the score with John DuPrez. Besides keeping most of the most beloved sequences from the original (including the Killer Rabbit and the French Knight who sneers "I fart in your general direction"), this version adds something more.
In addition to pillaging every tried-and-true trope of Knighthood, Spamalot also deconstructs the musical comedy with mad abandon, dissing everything from Fiddler on the Roof to all of Andrew Lloyd Webber.
For example, Sir Galahad meets the Lady of the Lake and they break into an endless, key-changing pop ballad called "The Song That Goes Like This," as the staging adds a heavy dose of Phantom menace, with a miniature boat gliding with electronic brainlessness around the stage while a chandelier flies in from the ceiling for good measure.
Las Vegas gets its due when Camelot becomes a giant illuminated casino with flashing lights, over-emoting vocalists and scantily clad chorines. Since they back up the Lady of the Lake, they're called, of course, the Laker Girls.
Not only does it work, but it's even funnier in many ways than the original.
In addition to these two smash shows, it looks like the Mirvishes have put together an intriguing roster of plays all the way down the line.
Previously revealed in the Star was Legends, by James Kirkwood, a show business comedy about two aging stars who bury their hatred of each other to revive their careers.
What will make the Toronto production that opens in September so fascinating is the presence of Joan Collins and Linda Evans in the leads.
Those duelling divas from Dynasty were the catty queens of 1980s television and it will be a treat to see them hiss and claw at each other once again.
Both Collins and Evans are expected to be in Toronto in person on Tuesday for the press conference announcing the season.
And on a more serious note, the highly acclaimed Stratford Festival production of Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending, which pleased critics and audiences alike last summer, will be returning to work its magic once again.
This vintage Williams cocktail of Southern decadence, repressed sexuality, wounded innocence and sudden violence proved to be as powerful today as it did when first produced in 1957.
The top-notch Stratford cast, headed by Seana McKenna, Jonathan Goad, Thom Marriott and Dana Green, are all expected to be recreating their roles in Toronto under the skilled direction of Miles Potter.
There are several other shows still to be announced on Tuesday, but already the 2006-2007 season is looking like one of the strongest that Mirvish Productions has put together in years.