Taking "Spamalot" to Vegas:
"Can I give you a ride home?" he (Steve Wynn) asks nicely. I'm thinking 6th Avenue, but he means L.A. Well, OK. He flies us home in a plane bigger than my boarding school. There are dogs on board, so my wife is happy. All the way he plays the "Spamalot" cast recording, regaling his passengers with his version of scenes from the show. Later he leaves a message on my phone in a British accent so good that for a moment I think it is Hank Azaria.
As part of my research, I decide to visit all the major attractions (in Vegas). Nothing quite matches the intensity of the plot of "Jubilee," which grips me with its thrilling story of 150 bare-breasted ladies seducing Samson and causing the Titanic to sink. At the Crazy Horse, the girls have blond wigs, perfect derri–res and genuine French names like Fifi and Suki. They remind me what the '70s was all about: light shows and shagging. But the show is a little thin on plot. And clothing.
The rest of the entertainment is all French Canadian, from Celine to the many Cirques. Monty Python was a Flying Circus, but does that qualify as a Cirque? We have no acrobats, no contortionism, apart from Silly Walks and only a few French people yelling abuse, farting in our general direction. What will the nipple-sated Nevadans make of our little show?
I know upfront that I will have to cut 20 minutes from it. What F. Scott Fitzgerald said of American lives is definitely true of Vegas — there are no second acts. Partly this is because they want you back in the casino, and partly it's because they want you back in the casino. In fact, with our low ticket prices I figured out that you will actually save money if you spend 90 minutes in "Spamalot." And if you sleep during the show you can save on a room.
...Last month we launched "Spamalot" in the new Grail Theater. I do a bit of stand-up: "I was in Vegas last night and I missed my wife so much I paid for a woman to come up to my room and ignore me…. "
I introduce our new King Arthur, producing John O'Hurley out of a can of Spam. Then we ham it up and dance a tango together. Why? Because I can't do the pasodoble. And of course we bring on our beautiful girls, wearing only white lingerie. Why? Do you need to ask? I announce that, as an added attraction, some of our shows will be topless, but only in John's part.
Steve Wynn is very funny. He says he has been trying to kill Broadway in Las Vegas and what better way than to put on "Spamalot." Earlier I had tried half-heartedly to persuade him to put his elbow through a painting. "It'll be a big laugh," I say, but he sensibly declined. "Bad enough I am known as the Inspector Clouseau of the art world," he laughed.
...THINGS are going well until the third night of previews, when we have a major glitch. Our elevator fails, and instead of the Lady of the Lake and her Laker girls emerging in their skimpy fronds, nothing happens.
King Arthur stands gesturing to an empty stage. "She's a bit late," says O'Hurley manfully. From below we can hear the Lady of the Lake singing away, but nothing emerges. Oh, dear. We are going to have to stop.
Some deep showoff instinct kicks in and I find myself rushing down through the audience and up onto the stage. The place goes wild. Easiest standing ovation I ever had. "This is what in theatrical terms is called a screw-up," I say. "A huge helicopter was supposed to land onstage … oh, no, that was another show." I ad-lib for about 10 minutes, thinking how Eddie Izzard would be proud of me doing improvisational stand-up in front of 1,600 people. Luckily the glitch ends before I do and I can escape back into the audience and the show continues.
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