New Archive:
May 2001 Issue
How to
Produce a Broadway Smash
A review of The Producers
By
Elyse
Trevers
Mel Brooks is a lunatic, a genius or both! Whatever he is, it's lucky for us. The long-awaited Broadway version of Brooks' 1968 movie The Producers has finally arrived at the St. James Theatre and taken the normally blasé New York theatergoers by storm. Shortly after the show opened, the producers announced a price hike and tickets now cost $99 plus $1 theater restoration fee, making The Producers the most expensive--and sought after--theater ticket on Broadway.
The Producers is one of the best times you will ever have at a Broadway show. That is, if you love to laugh. It's silly, ingenious, absurd, and borderline tasteless. Brooks' genius is in knowing how far to go for a laugh.
The premise for the play is slightly outrageous: Nathan Lane plays a formerly successful producer, Max Bialystock, ("the biggest name on Broadway--13 letters,") who has had a run of bad luck and bad plays. When nebbish accountant Leo Bloom (Mathew Broderick) who's been sent to do his books unwittingly observes how a failed play could conceivably earn more money for its producers than a successful one, Bialystock is intrigued and excited. If backers contribute more money than the play needs and the play flops, then the producers can keep the extra-unspent money (illegally, of course).
Bloom is terrified at the thought of being caught, but he yearns to be a producer. This leads to a catchy production number featuring Bloom and a bevy of leggy chorus girls as Bloom decides to join in the larceny.
First they seek the worst play in the world and find one written by a fanatic German. His work Springtime For Hitler, a paean to the Nazi leader, is designed to make the German leader more likable. Brad Oscar plays playwright Franz Liebkind with just the right touch of lunacy. Brooks creates a sublimely comic moment by giving Franz a backup choir of caged pigeons wearing swastikas. Franz is a closet Nazi who wants the world to see the good side of Adolf Elizabeth Hitler; ("Elizabeth--he comes from a long line of English queens.") How ludicrous! How hysterical!
Then the producers find the world's worst director to oversee the show. Gary Beach is divine as Roger DeBris. His first appearance is in a form-fitting gown designed to makes him look like the Chrysler Building. DeBris surrounds himself with an entourage of colorful characters. Roger Bart, who won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor as Snoopy in You're A Good Man, Charlie Man, does a wonderfully affected Carmen Ghia, DeBris' assistant.
The final step is getting the financial backing for the play, and Bialystock appeals to his bevy of elderly lonely women with the unlikely names of "Hold-me Touch-me" and "Kiss-me Feel-me." He romances them in return for their money and sells far more than 100% of the show.
The second act of The Producers is the show Springtime for Hitler itself. With its awful performers and director, there's no way it can possibly succeed. When opening night arrives, the lead actor breaks his leg, forcing the director to take his place.
The resulting play within a play is absolutely hilarious. There's a Follies-type number with beautiful girls in outrageous costumes festooned with Teutonic symbols. There's a mirror dance like the one in 42Nd Street. Here the dancers make the configuration of a swastika.
What would a Mel Brooks production be without some sexy girls? In spiked heels and scanty clothes, the chorus girls evoke images of old vaudeville skits and burlesque. Ulla, played by the sexy Cady Huffman, is a Swedish dancer-singer who comes to the producers' office for a job. They look at her, instantly become enamored, and make her their secretary. Huffman is a tall statuesque actress who epitomizes the blonde bombshell.
Bialystock and Bloom are convinced that their fortunes are made and each will be able to retire to Argentina with a million dollars. Will this be their fate? See the show to find out!
Nathan Lane is wonderful as Max Bialystock, yet ironically he plays the same role he's been playing for all of his Broadway career. He's the master of mugging with his rubber face and the asides, and does it all with perfection. He's a marvelous singer and dancer.
Mathew Broderick plays Leo Bloom, the nervous accountant. Broderick doesn't have Lane's voice or magnetism, but he has a boyish innocence that works well for the stammering, insecure Bloom.
The original stars of the movie, Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, are Jewish. The Broadway version features two non-Jews in the lead roles, but we naturally assume the characters to be Jewish because of their names and, perhaps, their vocations. However, religion isn't a factor in the play. Their distaste for to the psycho-playwright is a normal American one, not a uniquely Jewish one.
Brooks is the composer and lyricist of the show as well as one of its writers. The music is very good and the lyrics are clever with some slight invectives and Yiddish thrown in for good measure. (Who would have realized that Bialystock rhymed with schlock?)
The creative team of The Producers reads like a veritable Who's Who of Broadway Theater, including Peter Kaczorowski (lighting design), William Ivey Long (costumes), and Robin Wagner (set design). The director/choreographer is Susan Strohman who directed and choreographed the award-winning Music Man. The play is superbly cast and each supporting role is a gem of writing and acting.
The beauty of the play is that no one seems to be insulted by it and everyone laughs, including the gays, the actors, the elderly, etc. How does Brooks do it? Probably by pushing everything just a little bit further and then making it absurd. He also has the knack for diffusing a potentially uncomfortable situation by creating a hilarious moment instead.
It's clever, it's crazy, it's hilarious! The Producers is going
to be on everyone's must-see list but don't be disappointed if you can't
get tickets right way (because you probably can't). This show is going
to be around for a long, long time.
Elyse
Trevers is a writer, teacher, and corporate trainer who lives in New York.
She has been writing theater reviews for ten years and is a member of
the Drama Desk and the Outer Critics Circle.
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