MILWAUKEE — Chris Collins-Pisano thinks he must’ve been in sixth or seventh grade when someone first showed him the 1975 film that’s become a Hollywood classic, “Monty Python and The Holy Grail.”
Naturally, he became a fan. His love of the movie and its timeless scenes only grew when he got a cast recording for its Broadway spoof production, “Spamalot.”
“I listened to it over and over and over again,” Collins-Pisano said.
Just like the movie, the show follows King Arthur and his knights on their quest for the “Holy Grail.”
Collins-Pisano describes it as the “topsy-turvey version of the King Arthur myth,” the legendary British king, that many people know.
Along the journey, they meet some absurd and unique characters, some of which Collins-Pisano now gets to portay in the Broadway musical. The entire thing is filled with slapstick comedy, nonsense and outright silliness.
It’s a story that Collins-Pisano said stands the test of time.
“That’s one of the things that’s so crazy to me about the movie, still, like 50 years after it premiered, is that it’s still the kind of movie that everybody, you whisper about it, you hear people quoting stuff,” he said.
So when he got the roles of Sir Lancelot, The French Taunter, Knight of Ni and Tim the Enchanter in “Spamalot,” he said it was like returning to his childhood inside jokes.
“When I first got the script and started looking at it, I was like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe that we’re all going to be saying these things that we’ve all been yelling since we were like 12,’” Collins-Pisano said.
Except this time — it’s with music. Collins-Pisano calls it the “witch’s brew of a musical.”
“It’s like this beautiful mix of sketch comedy and big Broadway musical spectacle, because we have all these funny little scenes that are like right out of the movie and all these little vignettes. And then there’s also these huge musical numbers,” he said.
Coming into his roles, memorably played by actor John Cleese in the movie, was freeing.
Collins-Pisano said he didn’t feel pressure to try to change too much because the writing is already so good.
He said simply doing the writing justice and letting it be heard — while still bringing some of himself to it — is how he approached his portrayal.
“I’m not afraid to commit like highway robbery with this stuff because it’s like, I don’t know, John Cleese did it, so it’s not like you can really find maybe the funnier way to do some of these lines,” he said.
Asked how he prepared for the purposefully terrible French accent in his French Taunter role, he said, “I completely stole it from John Cleese.”
When it comes to making the roles his own, the Knight of Ni is his favorite; it’s his biggest moment of improv in the show when he gets to the familiar line, “We are no longer the Knights who say ‘Ni,’ we are now the Knights who say…”
“You can say whatever you want after that. And poor King Arthur has to repeat it back,” Collins-Pisano said.
From pop-culture references to music and movies, Collins-Pisano said he enjoys seeing if Major Attaway, the actor behind King Arthur, can guess what he’s talking about.
That, or he’s finding the popular local law office jingle at each city’s tour stop.
Even though there are a lot of nonsensical elements to the show, behind the scenes, Collins-Pisano said there was a big discussion with director and choreographer Josh Rhodes about how to tap into the characters’ realness.
“He really stressed with me with each of the characters that even though it is a completely nonsensical world, like you said, it’s still a real world to all these people. And these are just kind of the rules that they follow,” Collins-Pisano said.
“He really, really pushed me every time, to like, as ridiculous as it can be, to remember that each of these characters really serves a purpose for the arc of King Arthur,” he added.
For example, he said in the show’s reality, the Knight of Ni is “very dangerous” to King Arthur and his mission to find the “Holy Grail.”
“So him and then like the French Taunter also represents like a big, like the first like true challenge to King Arthur’s authority,” Collins-Pisano said.
“And kind of like everything that Arthur is dealing with in Act Two is kind of stemming from the failure to confront the French. And getting kind of turned away, I think, is what kind of sets everybody on the path. Like, ‘Wow, this isn’t going to be easy. We really have to figure out how we’re going to find this Holy Grail.’”
Collins-Pisano said he loves this dichotomy of the show.
“What I love about Monty Python is so many of those sketches are so ridiculous and so, like, out of nowhere. But they take it so seriously and they’re acting like it’s just like normal,” he said.
“Spamalot” may not be “trying to change the world,” Collins-Pisano said, but there are still some lessons at its core.
From laughs to an escape, he said most audiences “walk out better than they walked into the musical.”
The song, “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” offers a reminder that things can be better.
The meshing of so many character types is a show of togetherness.
“It’s about learning how to work together despite how weird everybody can be,” Collins-Pisano said. “So if you’re able to look past the veneer of all the ridiculous stuff that’s going on, I think that there’s a really good message about joy and… togetherness.”
With flying cows and killer rabbits, the show is one that sticks across generations.
“It has all these different things, but I think that’s what makes it so good and why it’s endured so long is that there really is something for everybody,” he said. “There’s like toilet fart humor that comes on like every five seconds, but there’s also this like really beautiful comedic writing that’s so highbrow at the same time.”
“Monty Python’s Spamalot” will be at the Marcus Performing Arts Center in Milwaukee from July 14-19. You can find tickets, here.