Merle Dandridge Joins the Boys Club

The reimagining of Monty Python and the Holy Grail as “Spamalot,” a Broadway musical, finally gives The Lady of the Lake the credit she’s due. It took over three decades, but the sentiment that “strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government,” now takes a back seat to her role as muse, wise coun­sel, and over-the-top diva. Merle Dandridge is both powerfully seductive and shamelessly goofy as the ethereal mistress who once held aloft Excalibur and declared Arthur king. The Lady, who first appears softly and dreamlike to convince a peasant named Dennis Galahad to join the Knights of the Round Table, soon reveals an ego and love of vocal gymnastics to rival any tabloid queen. And after the intensity of her Broadway turns as Mary Magdalene in “Jesus Christ Superstar” (understudy), the title role in “Aida,” and Joanne in “Rent,” Dandridge has earned the cred to camp it up in this Eric Idle-conceived, three-time Tony-winning smash. “I remem­ber when I first got this job, everybody was confused,” grins the Okinawa-born enchantress. “They were like, ‘Don’t you do drama?’ Yes, and I’m tired of crying. I want to laugh for once!”

As a longtime fan of Monty Python, the legendary boys’ club of British comedy, who generally preferred dressing in drag to featuring real women, Dandridge is having a blast as the only female in “Spamalot” with a speaking role. I love it, she beams. “If I had a house full of brothers, just being rowdy and crazy, and poking fun at me like my coworkers do, I would be so happy. I love hanging with the guys. They’re so great, they’re so smart and interesting. They give me a hard time until I’m blue in the face and I love it.”

Dandridge left Japan with her family shortly after she was born, lived briefly in Korea, and grew up on the Strategic Air Command base in Bellevue, Nebraska, which likely helped to instill in her the determination and respect it takes to climb the rungs to Broadway. “When you’re raised on a military base,” she notes, “one has to behave oneself, even as a child, with a certain amount of discipline. Because it’s not just your parents that you’re answering to, you also have the authority of the base commander over your head. It’s required for you to act with a certain amount of discipline and self-restraint.”

It was more circumstance than forethought, though, that brought the charismatic actor-chanteuse to the stage. “The the­ater thing found me, and pursued me,” she confides, “and it turned into one of the great loves of my life.” When her high-school friends went off to the International Thespian Festival, she decided to tag along. “I went, and got a full ride to school [at Chicago’s Roosevelt Uni­versity],” explains the stunning natural. “Anyone with sense would take great advantage of that, so I dove in and really worked hard, and I ended up working right out of college.”

Alongside her impressive Broad­way resume, which includes originating the role of Kala in Disney’s inventively staged “Tarzan,” and work on such TV shows as “Angel,” “NCIS,” and “Third Watch,” Dandridge has an alter ego in the digital world as the voice of Alyx Vance in the sci-fi shoot-‘em-up videogame series, “Half-Life 2.” With a legion of gamer fans, who “show up in my life in very unexpected ways,” the performer proclaims the cyber gig to be “one of my favorite jobs of all time.”

As “Spamalot”’s central metaphor, The Lady of the Lake calls upon the knights to “find your grail.” With all the chal­lenges and successes of her adventure so far, has Dandridge found hers? “I don't know,” she laughs, “but I assume when I do, I will know.”  ▼

See Dandridge in Spamalot at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, now through October 18. For tickets, visit www.ocpac.org. To learn more, visit www.merledandridge.com.