The Schpam loaf poses for a portrait. Photo by Dale Van Dusen. Loaf by M.V. Jantzen.
SPAMLET
August 14-October 5, 2002
written & directed by Anton Dudley
Warehouse Next Door
1017 Seventh St., NW
August 14-October 5, 2002
written & directed by Anton Dudley
Warehouse Next Door
1017 Seventh St., NW
Gert is sick of packing meat at the Schpam factory. She'd rather be a rock star. So the sudden, mysterious disappearance of her husband (into a meat grinder) provides a welcome opportunity. But before the blades can be wiped clean, her morose meddling shithead son, Hamlet, is home from college, rarin' to avenge his father's death. Soon, though, the hormone-heavy Hamlet is distracted by the exotic charms of Indian exchange student Ohfahfahfah, who, together with her incestuously-inclined step-brother Herc, Herc's mom Dolores, Gert's Nazi boyfriend Fritz, and a mullet-sportin' highschooler named Ned, lead Hamlet down the oft-melodramatic, always-hilarious path to self-destruction.
Cherry Red kick-started its eighth slutty season with this timeless musical tale of boy-meets-processed-meatfood-byproduct -- a new work by Anton Dudley, the director of Killer Joe and Talk Show, and the writer/director of Romeo & Juliatric. There wa'n't no Shakespeare, just a demolition roller-derby style theatrical event guaranteed to make you laugh so hard, you'll hurl canned meat-food by-product stuff! Featuring Gabriel Fry, Kate Debelack, Barbara Catrett, John Tweel, Ian Allen, Patricia Penn, and Richard Renfield.
"Spamlet"
Tricia Olszewski
The City Paper
August 23, 2002
Only a heartless bastard would remain unmoved hearing a son tell his mother, "I'm sorry I said all those things...and ass-bumped you." Cherry Red Productions presents Anton Dudley's taboo-heavy Spamlet, whose murder and dirty mayhem must be excusable, because they're borrowed from the Bard. Gert (Kate Debelack), a pink-haired drone at the Schpam factory whose husband has been suspiciously killed in a freak Schpam accident, now feels free to pursue her dream of becoming a rock star. Her son, Hamlet (Gabriel Fry), learns this news from the ghost of his father himself, as he and his blockhead cousin Hercules (John Tweel) return home from college--"home" consisting of a run-down apartment that Gert shares with her pedophiliac sister, Dolores (Barbara Catrett), also a packer of Schpam. Other twisted players in the story include Ohfahfahfah (Patricia Penn), an Indian exchange student who has to stop screwing Hercules when Dolores adopts her; Ned (Richard Renfield), Dolores' teenage, mulleted boyfriend; and Fritz (Ian Allen, also Cherry Red's artistic director), the king of Schpam, father of Ned, and suspected Nazi who wants to share his meaty monarchy with Gert. And did I mention that it's a musical? Spamlet packs more jokes into its two hours than an entire season of Saturday Night Live, its singers are surprisingly capable, and the humor nearly always works. Between the catfights, show-tune ripoffs, and nudity, there's a little something for everyone. Including fake gore: Unless you want to scare some people on the Metro ride home, do yourself a favor and take advantage of the trash bags offered at the start of the show.
"Cherry Red's 'Spamlet': An Acquired Taste"
Dolores Whiskeyman
The Washington Post
August 20, 2002
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Freelance writer Dolores Whiskeyman, who was assigned to review Cherry Red's production of "Spamlet," intercepted the following correspondence and sent it our way.]
To: Mark Charney,
Guidance Counselor,
Hormone High
From: Leona Beetlebottom,
English Department
Dear Mark,
You must remember Anton Dudley, that nice boy from my Shakespeare class who went on to Vassar and then to New York University. He sometimes directs for Cherry Red Productions. In fact, I think he's their literary manager now. You know the group, the one that's so preoccupied with potty humor.
Well, it seems our Anton has written another play! (I always thought that with a name like Anton, he would be a wonderful playwright someday.) Only, Mark, I don't know what I did to that boy, but he's gone and done another parody of one of the tragedies. The last time it was "Romeo and Juliet," and this time it's "Hamlet." He's called it "Spamlet" and turned it into a musical set in Florida, of all places. In "Romeo & Juliatric," he made the star-crossed lovers octogenarians but followed the original story structure, which frankly I found rather tedious. But here, he's introduced original characters and different subplots, and he's shifted the focus from Hamlet to Gertrude. (Which is rather interesting, when you think about it. What is the story with a woman who would remarry within weeks of her husband's death?)
But I just don't know, Mark, I just don't know. Really. Hamlet is Shakespeare's greatest drama. The beauty of the poetry alone makes me quiver. In places I can't admit. But Anton has reduced it to some trailer park soap opera involving these trashy people who curse constantly and engage in all sorts of lewd behavior. Gertrude isn't the Queen of Denmark anymore, she's a meatpacker who wants to be a rock star. (Actually, the actress who plays her does have quite a powerful singing voice.) And she lives with her sister, this utterly nasty woman named Dolores, who is having an affair with the packing-plant owner's 13-year-old son!
Now I know these Cherry Red people like to put on comedies about terrible things -- child molesters and cannibalism and so forth. So I was prepared to see a few unsettling sights, and I did -- full-frontal male nudity and simulated sex and Gertrude's bare breasts. But somehow I'm not sure I'll ever get over the sight of that one young man with his, well his, you know in his hand squirting his you know what out over the audience. This is a theater company that likes to squirt things -- they squirted a lot of blood in Act 2 -- so they hand out garbage bags to people in the first three rows. Still, I thought it was pretty undignified to have to watch a play from inside a garbage bag.
But here's the thing, Mark -- and I do hope you won't tell anyone about this -- I found myself laughing. In fact, I couldn't stop laughing. I don't know what came over me -- maybe it was just the sheer exuberance of the cast, or some of the wickedly clever jokes that Anton sprinkled throughout the script, or perhaps the way he staged that scene in the second act where Gertrude serves up a huge Spam loaf that no one can bring himself to eat. Or perhaps it was just the ridiculous juxtaposition of that sublime Shakespearean masterpiece with American kitsch -- like Spam and spandex tights and Piggly Wiggly stores. It was all so silly, I just completely fell apart.
Now if I could only figure out what Anton was trying to say.
Oh well.
Bridge next week?
[CHERRY RED EDITOR'S NOTE: Hnuh?]
Cherry Red kick-started its eighth slutty season with this timeless musical tale of boy-meets-processed-meatfood-byproduct -- a new work by Anton Dudley, the director of Killer Joe and Talk Show, and the writer/director of Romeo & Juliatric. There wa'n't no Shakespeare, just a demolition roller-derby style theatrical event guaranteed to make you laugh so hard, you'll hurl canned meat-food by-product stuff! Featuring Gabriel Fry, Kate Debelack, Barbara Catrett, John Tweel, Ian Allen, Patricia Penn, and Richard Renfield.
"Spamlet"
Tricia Olszewski
The City Paper
August 23, 2002
Only a heartless bastard would remain unmoved hearing a son tell his mother, "I'm sorry I said all those things...and ass-bumped you." Cherry Red Productions presents Anton Dudley's taboo-heavy Spamlet, whose murder and dirty mayhem must be excusable, because they're borrowed from the Bard. Gert (Kate Debelack), a pink-haired drone at the Schpam factory whose husband has been suspiciously killed in a freak Schpam accident, now feels free to pursue her dream of becoming a rock star. Her son, Hamlet (Gabriel Fry), learns this news from the ghost of his father himself, as he and his blockhead cousin Hercules (John Tweel) return home from college--"home" consisting of a run-down apartment that Gert shares with her pedophiliac sister, Dolores (Barbara Catrett), also a packer of Schpam. Other twisted players in the story include Ohfahfahfah (Patricia Penn), an Indian exchange student who has to stop screwing Hercules when Dolores adopts her; Ned (Richard Renfield), Dolores' teenage, mulleted boyfriend; and Fritz (Ian Allen, also Cherry Red's artistic director), the king of Schpam, father of Ned, and suspected Nazi who wants to share his meaty monarchy with Gert. And did I mention that it's a musical? Spamlet packs more jokes into its two hours than an entire season of Saturday Night Live, its singers are surprisingly capable, and the humor nearly always works. Between the catfights, show-tune ripoffs, and nudity, there's a little something for everyone. Including fake gore: Unless you want to scare some people on the Metro ride home, do yourself a favor and take advantage of the trash bags offered at the start of the show.
"Cherry Red's 'Spamlet': An Acquired Taste"
Dolores Whiskeyman
The Washington Post
August 20, 2002
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Freelance writer Dolores Whiskeyman, who was assigned to review Cherry Red's production of "Spamlet," intercepted the following correspondence and sent it our way.]
To: Mark Charney,
Guidance Counselor,
Hormone High
From: Leona Beetlebottom,
English Department
Dear Mark,
You must remember Anton Dudley, that nice boy from my Shakespeare class who went on to Vassar and then to New York University. He sometimes directs for Cherry Red Productions. In fact, I think he's their literary manager now. You know the group, the one that's so preoccupied with potty humor.
Well, it seems our Anton has written another play! (I always thought that with a name like Anton, he would be a wonderful playwright someday.) Only, Mark, I don't know what I did to that boy, but he's gone and done another parody of one of the tragedies. The last time it was "Romeo and Juliet," and this time it's "Hamlet." He's called it "Spamlet" and turned it into a musical set in Florida, of all places. In "Romeo & Juliatric," he made the star-crossed lovers octogenarians but followed the original story structure, which frankly I found rather tedious. But here, he's introduced original characters and different subplots, and he's shifted the focus from Hamlet to Gertrude. (Which is rather interesting, when you think about it. What is the story with a woman who would remarry within weeks of her husband's death?)
But I just don't know, Mark, I just don't know. Really. Hamlet is Shakespeare's greatest drama. The beauty of the poetry alone makes me quiver. In places I can't admit. But Anton has reduced it to some trailer park soap opera involving these trashy people who curse constantly and engage in all sorts of lewd behavior. Gertrude isn't the Queen of Denmark anymore, she's a meatpacker who wants to be a rock star. (Actually, the actress who plays her does have quite a powerful singing voice.) And she lives with her sister, this utterly nasty woman named Dolores, who is having an affair with the packing-plant owner's 13-year-old son!
Now I know these Cherry Red people like to put on comedies about terrible things -- child molesters and cannibalism and so forth. So I was prepared to see a few unsettling sights, and I did -- full-frontal male nudity and simulated sex and Gertrude's bare breasts. But somehow I'm not sure I'll ever get over the sight of that one young man with his, well his, you know in his hand squirting his you know what out over the audience. This is a theater company that likes to squirt things -- they squirted a lot of blood in Act 2 -- so they hand out garbage bags to people in the first three rows. Still, I thought it was pretty undignified to have to watch a play from inside a garbage bag.
But here's the thing, Mark -- and I do hope you won't tell anyone about this -- I found myself laughing. In fact, I couldn't stop laughing. I don't know what came over me -- maybe it was just the sheer exuberance of the cast, or some of the wickedly clever jokes that Anton sprinkled throughout the script, or perhaps the way he staged that scene in the second act where Gertrude serves up a huge Spam loaf that no one can bring himself to eat. Or perhaps it was just the ridiculous juxtaposition of that sublime Shakespearean masterpiece with American kitsch -- like Spam and spandex tights and Piggly Wiggly stores. It was all so silly, I just completely fell apart.
Now if I could only figure out what Anton was trying to say.
Oh well.
Bridge next week?
[CHERRY RED EDITOR'S NOTE: Hnuh?]