"Spamilton: An American Parody"
If you're in search of hilarity, as opposed to more daily depressing crapola, then please, go, I'm telling you, go see "Spamilton" at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in hip, happening Culver City. Go before January 7 when it closes, leaving you with another thing to add to your list of regrets. Last night, I went with John, a wonderful fella who grew up in the same kooky house as me, and forever friend Laurie and her funny pal Felicia. It was a grown-up evening for the SJG. With all the schlepping and dinner-digesting, clapping and laughing, I tired myself out and fell asleep the second I got home. Sir Blakey had to put me to bed: "Good girl! Go schluffy! Night night!"
"Spamilton" is the brainchild of Gerald Alessandrini, who's spent 35 years lampooning Broadway, taking on everything from "Phantom of the Opera" and "The Sound of Music" to "Mamma Mia!" and "Spring Awakening." So why not take on "Hamilton"?
Why not take on Lin-Manuel as Hamilton? Why not call him out, gently, for his abundance of verbiage, his Sondheim fixation -- "And another hundred syllables/came out of his brain" -- his uber-earnestness? "I'm slightly obnoxious/too broad, too pained/My voice is strained/and thin/I'm Lin-Manuel!" Before you doth protest too much, and start saying, "How dare you!" it's pretty clear that the "hip-hop op'ra scholar" who just parodied himself on "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is in on the joke. His "Spamilton" review: "I laughed my brains out!"
"I wanna be/in the film when it happens!"
Nothing is sacred in this show. Not Beyonce, Babs, J-Lo, Liza. Not Michelle. Not Barack. Not "Lion King," "Sweeney Todd," "Annie," "Rent," or so many other classics I lost count. The Broadway and pop culture asides are, as they say in the original, Non-Stop.
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