|
 TM
Mel Brooks' “The Producers”
Brilliantly Outrages Everyone
Bialystock and Bloom take on Hitler
By Lucy Komisar
It’s a satiric masterpiece, cocky, imaginative,
insulting, unpredictable. And on the flip side of the fantasy and silliness
is truth. This is a wacky take on reality, not the nonsense that often
passes for comedy. And the wicked jibes are never nasty, always
good-natured. Mel Brooks’ “The Producers” sets a new standard for pushing
humor to the edge of the outrageous, but not over the edge of taste. How
could anyone be offended when director Susan Stroman stages each episode
with such giddy, glorious, flippant production numbers?
 The
brilliance of this comedy is in the reversal, the unexpected, the
exaggerated. Failed producer Max Bialystock (Brad Oscar) has walked out of
his last disastrous show “Funny Boy” (he came so close!) desperate for a
success. Then he finds a way to turn his next flop into gold. He will raise
1,000 percent of the show from backers and then keep the cash when the play
predictably bombs. The idea is the inadvertent brainchild of Leo Bloom
(Roger Bart), an accountant so timid that he gets hysterical when Max takes
his blue security blanket. They are a perfect odd couple, one arrogant and
audacious, the other diffident and faint-hearted.
They go through piles of dreadful manuscripts and pull
out the worst, “Springtime for Hitler,” bound to offend audiences and close
in a night. Curiously, when the movie version opened in 1968, it was a hit
on the coasts, but bombed in the heartland. So maybe Bialystock wasn’t far
off.
Everything aims at skewering the politics of power. Do
lascivious producers force petitioners to the casting couch? This florid,
extravagant fellow is the sex object of rich old ladies who want to play
“the virgin milkmaid and the well-hung stable boy.”
 Do
bosses exploit underlings? In the accounting firm, where eye-shaded workers
are stuck in tiny spaces between high cabinets, a black accountant sings a
slave song. When Leo Bloom shows some spirit, the boss inquires, “Do I smell
the revolutionary scent of self-esteem?”
Are Nazis bully boys? Hitler, of course, is gay. Do
Germans deny they knew anything about the Holocaust? Franz Liebkind (John
Treacy Egan), wearing lederhosen and a helmet topped with an iron cross,
yells, “I was only following orders. I didn’t even know there was a war on.
We lived in the back!” Liebkind (German for love child) tends singing
puppet-pigeons on the roof of 61 Jane Street. Surely by coincidence, that is
the real-life Greenwich Village high-rise address of Tom Meehan, who
co-wrote the book.
 Not
that Brooks lets the erstwhile powerless off the hook. Joking about the
appropriation of language, he muses about the “the time when I was young and
gay – but straight.” He wants to hire a dreadful homosexual director (Gary
Beach) and visits his pink and purple house where an aide (Brad Musgrove)
hisses as he opens the door and introduces himself as “Carmen Ghia, Mr. De
Bris’s common-law assistant.” Bris is spelled like the Jewish word for
circumcision but pronounced like the cheese. Musgrove’s limp wrist lingers
for a moment after the rest of him disappears out the door.
To offend women, there’s Ulla (Angie Schworer), whose
main qualification for a job with the production team is a big bosom and
derriere. A black cop gets a brogue. (“I’ve heard of black Irish, but this
is ridiculous.”) Old ladies with aluminum walkers do a syncopated tap.
 What
better style for the spoof than the saccharine fantasy of Hollywood musicals
that were never about real life or real problems or real issues. Or the
typical behind-the-scenes dance rehearsal, where the choreographer calls
out, “Arabesque, goose-step, goose-step.” The final production number will
gladden the hearts of the fans of jingoistic military movies.
In fact, this show will gladden everyone's heart. It's
become an international phenomenon. As the lyric said, “Spring time for
Hitler and Germany. Watch out Europe, we’re going on tour!”
"The Producers." Book by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan.
Music and lyrics by Mel Brooks. Directed and choreographed by Susan Stroman.
Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick originated the roles of Max and Leo, but
as in all hit shows, there continue to be cast changes.
St. James Theatre, 246 W. 44 St. Tue 7, Wed-Sat 8, Wed
& Sat 2, Sun 3. Running
time: 2:40. $31-$100. 212-239-6200, 800-432-7250. Web
page at
http://www.producersonbroadway.com. For music,
http://www.theproducerscastrecording.com.
Images by Norma Jean Roy and Paul Kolnik
Back to
TravelLady Magazine |
