Tom Deckman was thrilled when he was cast in the national tour of “Spamalot” some 15 years ago and saw there was a stop scheduled for Rochester at the Auditorium Theatre.
“And I was so, so excited to be able to perform that role for my hometown and my family and my friends,” he says.
But before that could happen, Deckman was pulled from the tour to join the Broadway company of “Spamalot.” What theater actor doesn’t want to do Broadway? But it meant he missed the Rochester gig.
Next week, Deckman gets a second chance to fart in the general direction of Rochester: Fans of the film that generated this farce, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” as well as the subsequent theater versions, will appreciate that rudeness.
“Now, I do have that opportunity to go and present it, and share it, if you will,” he says.
Deckman’s not speaking of presenting flatulence, but the show itself. Starting Friday, “Spamalot” runs through Sept. 25 at Blackfriars Theatre, with Deckman directing.
“Yeah, it’s on a smaller scale, it’s a 120-seat theater,” he says. And yet, “There have been surprisingly few compromises. You’re essentially getting the show that I have always known and always loved. Sure, it’s scaled down, but it’s better for the audience because every single person is sitting on top of the action.”
So you want action? The giant rabbit rigged as a Trojan horse is ready to roll. True, it’s only a little more than 6 feet tall. In theater, perspective – and practicality – is everything.
“Really, the most important thing is it clears the entrances and exits, and getting it on and off stage,” Deckman says.
And from the movie to the national tour to the Broadway company, a sense of budget-conscious production is built into all productions of “Spamalot.” Most notably, that’s in the casting, with actors playing multiple parts. For his part of this thespian schizophrenia – he was nominated for the Helen Hayes Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2007 – Deckman has played the roles of The Historian, Not-Dead-Fred, a minstrel, the whiny Prince Herbert and one of the French guards.
Yet this time around, Deckman plays no parts. He really had no choice. A year and a half ago, he couldn’t even get out of bed and make the short walk to the bathroom of his New York City apartment. “I couldn’t move,” he says. “It was frightening.”
The bloodwork showed Deckman had rheumatoid arthritis, brought on by auto-immune disease: An umbrella of attacks on the immune system that’s in his genes, he says, that can include lupus, HIV, and multiple sclerosis, which struck Deckman’s grandmother.
Until then, Deckman’s acting career had been moving along quite nicely. “They say you’re not a real New York actor until you’ve done a ‘Law and Order,’” he says. “I’ve done a couple of those. ‘Sex and the City.’” And he’s done Broadway and off-Broadway. Shows you know, such as the Beach Boys musical “Good Vibrations.” Shows you may have forgotten, such as the sci-fi musical spoof of alien conspiracy, “Illuminati Lizards from Outer Space.”
Acting in a television show is a different animal from theater, which often presents a grueling schedule. Making it more complicated for Deckman: His battle with auto-immune disease had permanently damaged his knees. “So my performing career was basically done, at least the eight-shows-a-week thing,” he says.
At age 43, the 1997 graduate of McQuaid Jesuit High School moved back to Rochester. To be around family, and a good medical team. And to study for a new career in early childhood education.
Or so he thought.
The opportunity to direct Blackfriars’ “Spamalot” presented itself unexpectedly. “Serendipitous” is the word Deckman uses, although that’s probably not the word the show’s original director would choose after he blew out his knee in four places and needed surgery.
Deckman was available, with a résumé loaded for the challenge. Most recently, in 2015, Deckman had reprised his multiple “Spamalot” roles in a 2015 Hollywood Bowl production that also featured Christian Slater and a former Monty Python cast member, Eric Idle.
The other Pythons had mixed feelings about seeing “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” transformed into a stage play. It was largely Idle’s doing: “He just wanted us to make the people laugh,” Deckman says.
“It’s important to not go too deep with these characters, it’s not Shakespeare,” he says of Idle’s concept. “The important thing is to stay engaged with each other and keep playing.”
And the director of the Hollywood Bowl shows, B.T. McNicholl, “was all about us being in the moment, and he didn’t want us to lean too heavily on any gag,” Deckman says. “He didn’t want us to get used to doing something, because then we’d just want to do that, and it would take us as the performer out of the story, and it wouldn’t be authentic. He would call that ‘killing your babies.’”
Getting too comfortable with a gag was a trap, McNicholl told the company, “and he would be very upset, but then it would become very clear why he did that. Because we had to reinvest ourselves, and it made it really fresh.”
Yet there’s comfort to be found in Deckman retaining the spirit of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” for the Blackfriars production. After considering minimizing the blood and gore of The Black Knight being dismembered limb by limb – “The audience is already in on the joke” – Deckman says he was encouraged to go for it, blood-slickened floor and all. And Scott Shriner plays King Arthur much as Graham Chapman did in the film. “He’s hilarious without trying to be hilarious,” Deckman says.
Unlike The Black Knight, Deckman says with the proper medication, he’s been feeling better each week. In fact, there may be a revival of his acting career in the making. At the end of the year, Deckman will be acting in his first feature film. Created by the producers of the Apple TV+ show “Central Park,” the movie will be about a pair of married couples who accidentally book a stay at the same bed and breakfast at the same time. Comedy ensues. Deckman calls it “a campy horror, fun film.”
There is an echo here of his directing opportunity with “Spamalot.”
“Just when you think you’re done with the business, that’s of course when you get sucked back in,” Deckman says. “Make yourself unavailable and then suddenly you get all these offers. It’s ridiculous.”
