Spam a lot: Huerta Hams it up with ‘Peter Pan’Spoof

If Monty Python’s Eric Idle could spoof the Legend of King Arthur with the sweet-and-starchy-ground-pork-and-ham product in Spamalot back in 2004, another expat Brit should be able to do the same for the story of the boy who never grew up. Indeed, it was less than two years later that longtime Santa Barbara theater pro and educator Emma-Jane Huerta created Peter Spam for Upstarts Youth Theatre, among many original works for the children’s theater school she ran for 20 years. 

“Spam and ketchup sandwiches – which are a big thing in England – is a theme running through the play, a kind of magic of Neverland,” she explained. “Everyone in the story loves them.”

But lampooning the classic J. M. Barrie tale with the laughable luncheon meat isn’t the only twist for Huerta’s play, a revival for her brand new Kerfuffle Theatre Company. She’s also cast every role – Peter, Wendy, Tinkerbell (here Stinkerbell), Nana the dog, and even the crocodile – with full-fledged adults. 

“I never wrote my plays specifically for kids,” she explained. “I wrote them for the theater, and it just happened to be a youth theater that did them. I always treated the kids as adults, so now I’m treating the adults as kids.” 

The show features Santa Barbara theater stalwarts Ed Lee as Peter Spam and Tiffany Story as Stinkerbell, along with a dozen other actors portraying all the characters in the family-friendly piece. 

“Ed’s got some gray hair, which is great, because it makes so much sense for the story of the little boy who doesn’t want to grow up,” Huerta said. 

Peter Spam features fantastic puppets and a big Bollywood number that opens the show – but eschews both Barrie’s retrograde native Americans, and the original’s mermaids. 

“I am very much drawn to spectacle, giant theater, street theater – the pantomime style as we call it in England,” she said. “I have giant things in the play. Everything’s big. Big actors, big clocks for the crocodile, who carries it as an accessory.”

Availability at Center Stage Theater had a lot to do with slotting Peter Spam to run December 28–31, during the lull between Christmas and New Year, but Huerta said the timing works well for a spoof with family appeal and to launch Kerfuffle. 

“That word is such an accurate description of what it’s like to put a play on. It’s one big unholy mess. People fighting and struggling and then you come out with these magical results. A big, chaotic mess ends up as wonderful art.”