Laughs come fast and furious in Royal George's spoof 'Spamilton'
“Spamilton” has a problem. It's too funny.
The jokes come so fast in the “Hamilton” parody that audiences barely have time to digest one before the cast serves up another.
As problems go, this is minor. Riotous laughter drowning out subsequent puns? Producers should be so lucky.
Then again, luck has little to do with the success of “Spamilton,” which opened this week at Chicago's Royal George Theatre. A sharp-witted spoof of Lin-Manuel Miranda and his blockbuster bio-musical about the nation's first treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton, “Spamilton” owes its success to creator/writer/director Gerard Alessandrini, the creative force behind the long-running, off-Broadway, musical theater sendup “Forbidden Broadway.”
Master parodist Alessandrini's work reflects not only sly wit, but an extensive knowledge of and a boundless affection for musical theater. He applies those talents to brilliantly skewering overwrought melodrama, inflated egos, empty spectacle, purple prose, tired revivals and all-around excess.
To serve up this satire, Alessandrini and his co-producers have assembled a first-rate ensemble of actors (almost all of them from the Chicago area), whose prowess equals their counterparts performing a few miles south in Chicago's legit “Hamilton.”
Mostly the show spoofs the emergence of Broadway darling Miranda (the endearing, enthusiastic Yando Lopez, who also plays the title character) as the crusading musical theater artist who's “not gonna let Broadway rot.”
Eric Andrew Lewis, a dynamo and veteran of Aurora's Paramount Theatre, plays Hamilton nemesis Aaron Burr. With great élan, the chameleon-like Donterrio Johnson plays Broadway actor Daveed Diggs (described here as the Fresh Prince of Big Hair), the original Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson, who attempts to explain the plot in the buoyant boogie-woogie number “What Did You Miss?”
Powerhouse singer/actress Michelle Lauto nearly steals the show as all three Schuyler Sisters and later conjures Jennifer Lopez, Beyoncé and Gloria Estefan, all of whom hope to collaborate with man-of-the-moment Miranda.
Guest diva and lone out-of-towner Christine Pedi, a terrific impressionist and “Forbidden Broadway” veteran, channels Bernadette Peters, Barbra Streisand and Liza Minnelli, old-school Broadway mavens displaced by hip-hop shows.
To call David Robbins' voice glorious doesn't do justice to the singer/actor's crystalline upper register, which he uses to impressive effect as Miranda mentor Stephen Sondheim.
In fact “Spamilton” pays repeated homage to Sondheim, himself an accomplished wordsmith, whose “Sunday in the Park with George,” “Company,” “Into the Woods” and “Sweeney Todd” are referenced repeatedly, with “Sweeney's” Beggar Woman surfacing several times seeking hard-to-come-by “Hamilton” tickets.
Last but most certainly not least, there's pianist Adam LaSalle, who stops the show in his solo turn as England's King George. He ruefully announces “Straight is Back” on Broadway, now that “history is the subject ... the metro, heterosexual subject.”
The show is peppered with shoutouts to other Broadway hits, deliciously silly mashups (“Avenue Crucible” was my favorite) and a jab at publicity hype that made Miranda a magazine cover boy.
In all honesty, audiences familiar with musical theater generally and “Hamilton” specifically will have an easier time getting the jokes. But it's not essential to enjoy this gleefully satirical feast served up by a superb young cast.
I would suggest audiences listen more and laugh less in order to fully enjoy the “Spamilton” experience. But that's just not possible, not when the laughs come this fast and this furious.
“Spamilton”
★ ★ ★ ½
Location: Royal George Theatre, 1641 N. Halsted St., Chicago, (312) 988-9000 or
Showtimes: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; 5 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 and 5 p.m. Sunday through May 28
Tickets: $59-$99
Running time: About 90 minutes, no intermission
Parking: $14 valet, limited street parking available
Rating: For teens and older, includes some mature subject matter