NY Theater: “The Glorious Ones” and
“Young Frankenstein”
epitomize bawdy plays
over centuries
With a few words that may not pass your spam blocker!
By Lucy Komisar
Bawdy plays have a tradition as old as Aristophanes’ “Lysistrata,” and though
the basis of the jokes is always the same, it’s fun to take a look at how the
presentation changes and how it remains the same. Two main New York stages – at
Lincoln Center and on Broadway – do that with plays that conjure up
sensibilities more than 400 years apart. “The Glorious Ones” is actually a new
play, but it is based on the real shticks of commedia dell’arte actors of the
16th century. “Young Frankenstein,” of course, is Mel Brooks’ conception. But
the man who invented the “One-Thousand-Year-Old Man” certainly would appreciate
the connection.
 “The Glorious Ones,” book and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, music by Stephen Flaherty,
based on the novel by Francine Prose, is a backstage musical about the lives,
loves, theatrical ambitions and conflicts of a troop of scruffy traveling street
players in Italy, 1576.
The theme around which the action is set is the actors’ desire for fame in the
creation of their improvisations, all linked to the now-famous stock characters
they created: Columbine (the woman), Harlequin (the young man), Pantalone (the
tailor). The impresario-star is Flaminio Scala.
 The dialogue is hardly subtle. Columbina (Natalie Venetia Belcon), a woman in
her 40s, is a sex object but has her own bawdy desires. In the first moments,
she declares, “If you’re good in bed, you’re good onstage….Acting is chemistry
between people. It’s all about sex.” The troop sings a salute to “raucous
comedy” and “grand vulgarity.” They sing to “villains, heroes and yes, the
occasional tart, with one hand on the crotch and one hand on the heart.”
Columbina complains to Flaminio (Marc Kudisch), “I’m never on the top when we
are making love!” And she warns off his advances: “Don’t touch the tits!” At a
key point in their play-within-a-play, the two are surrounded and hidden by a
fabric held by the others while they make the sounds of making love.
 Some of the jokes are frat-house level. The doctor (John Kassir) prescribes a
potion made from the balls of a billy goat. He is told that Flaminio ate them
for dinner. “What?” declaims the doctor. “You have no balls?”
The young Armanda (Julyana Soelistyo) asks some men to teach her all they know.
They reply, “From Massimo down to Niccolo, we’ll teach you how to Piccolo! And
all of us will be ticked as you blow!”
Then they teach her to “ride the little pony,” and she proclaims, “But after a
while, the pony seems to die! And none of you men will ever tell me why!”
More frat-house: A cure for madness requires testicles. Flaminio declares, “I
need testicles!” And Columbina ripostes, “I couldn’t agree more.”
All this was a big hit in the streets of Renaissance Italy. But when they took
it to the court of France and played before the king and the cardinal, they were
ordered to depart on pain of death. At least, that’s what happens in this play;
there’s no indication of historical verisimilitude.
Mimicking the commedia plots, the play itself is a bit flat and some of lyrics
dreary and pedestrian. The plaint of Flaminio was that improvised street theater
was being replaced by scripted plays. “Now writers will rule the theater, and
actors can kiss the truth goodbye.” In fact, some future written plays would
keep the bawdiness, but surround it with real plots. And better jokes.
“Young Frankenstein” (Book by Mel Brooks & Thomas Meehan; Music & Lyrics by Mel
Brooks, based on Brooks movie of 1974) is a measure of that, and it’s all to the
good.
It’s 1934. Frederick (Roger Bart) is dean of anatomy in a medical school – an
auspicious beginning. The sex starts out being frustrated, as his rich,
self-centered fianceé Elizabeth (Megan Mullally) dances to “Please Don’t Touch
Me,” a new dance craze sweeping Catholic girls’ schools all over the Midwest.
(Smashing direction and choreography by Susan Stroman.) In my day, and Brooks’,
they were known as SCAGs – small Catholic girls’ schools.
 Here
the first joke is about women who won’t. Elizabeth says, “I hope somebody likes
old-fashioned weddings!” and he replies, “I prefer old-fashioned wedding
nights!”
Not a chance, Elizabeth declares: “Dream all you want, my darling, of ev'ry
lustful situation, those naughty thoughts, are fine with me, as long as they
stay locked away in your imagination. You can hug me till I scream, if it’s only
in a dream, but please don't touch me!”
She sings, “You can stick me, you can lick me, you can pinch me till I'm blue,
you can bite me and delight me till I'm blind! You can savage me and ravage me,
I care not what you do, if the lovely filthy things you do are only in your
mind!
She remarks, “Freddie, darling, I know that you’re a virgin.” He replies, “Yes.
For me, science has always come first.” And her double entendre (there are
many) is, “…and as every guy in New York knows, I come fi rst, too.
Then a throwback to the commedia? The men sing, “We won’t poke you, we won’t
stroke you, 'til we're just about to die.” And Elizabeth: “Don't dare to touch
our tits!
Elizabeth’s opposite is the sultry blonde Inga (Sutton Foster) who cavorts with
Frederick in a hay wagon on the ride to his ancestral castle in Transylvania
Heights. She explains, “I have a master’s degree in laboratory science from
Heidelberg Junior College. I can fulfill all your needs. I’m a very hard worker
and, if necessary, I’ll even bend over backwards for you. I’m very
high-spirited, Doktor. I hope you won’t hold it against me.” She asks if she’s
been hired. He says, “Well, a huge part of me is pointing in that direction.”
From “don’t touch” to “please touch” to “please hurt.” Frau Blucher (Andrea
Martin) does a superbly funny satire of Lotte Lenya (shades of “Surabaya
Johnny”), singing, “He was my boy friend. He always would hurt me …but I was
happy to be hurt.”
 “He vas a bully und a brute, he vas as crazy as a coot, still I didn’t give a
hoot, he vas my boy friend! With ev’ry voman he vould flirt, he alvays treated
me like dirt, but I vas happy to be hurt, he vas my boy friend. I vas as pure as
a virgin meadow, lying with Victor in the gloam, then he turned to me, that
charmer, whispered, “let’s play farmer,” and plowed me ‘til the cows came home!
She reminisces: “I’ll never forget the first time I met Victor. It vas on the
village green, at the annual bock beer festival….Victor won the three-legged
race…all by himself. It vas love at first sight.”
As in the commedia, there’s a hidden love scene, on a platform that Frederick
has accidentally levitated by pushing a button. Frau Blucher says, “I wonder
what they’re doing up there?” Igor (Christopher Fitzgerald), the hump-backed
assistant answers, “I think he’s doing an experiment in female anatomy and she’s
assisting his brains out.”
Well, even Elizabeth finds her love when she is carried off by the monster
(Shuler Hensley). Fireworks go off, and she sings, “Deep love, at last I found
deep love, been searching for deep love, for all of my life! Long love,
incredibly long love, a constant and strong love, that rids me of strife! Firm
love, a gentle but firm love, an unyielding firm love, for this my heart cried!
Deep love, at last I found deep love, now I will keep love, forever inside!
So, what’s the difference between these bawdy plays separated by centuries?
Mostly the better writing that playwrights like Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan have brought to the
old stock gags. “Young Frankenstein” gives us a real story with clever plots and
devices, so that instead of off-color skits tied with flimsy narrative, you get
a funny musical laced with double entendres.
Whether it would please a king or a cardinal, we don’t know!
“The Glorious Ones.” Book & Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens. Music by Stephen Flaherty.
Directed and choreographed by Graciela Daniele. Starring Natalie Venetia Belcon,
Erin Davie, John Kassir, David Patrick Kelly, Marc Kudisch, Julyana Soelistyo,
Jeremy Webb. Sets by Dan Ostling. Costumes by Mara Blumenfeld. Mitzi Newhouse
Theater at Lincoln Center. 165 W. 65th St. Tue - Sat at 8pm; Wed & Sat at 2pm;
Sun at 3pm. Through January 6, 2008. $75. 212-239-6200. http://www.lct.org/.
“Young Frankenstein.” Book by Mel Brooks & Thomas Meehan. Music & lyrics by Mel
Brooks. Directed & choreographed by Susan Stroman. Starring Roger Bart, Megan
Mullally, Sutton Foster, Shuler Hensley, Andrea Martin, Fred Applegate,
Christopher Fitzgerald. Sets by Robin Wagner. Costumes by William Ivey Long.
Hilton Theatre, 213 W. 42nd St. Tue at 7pm; Wed - Sat at 8pm; Wed & Sat at 2pm;
Sun at 3pm. Running time 2:30 $51.50 - $121.50. 212-307-4100.
http://www.youngfrankensteinthemusical.com/.
Photos of “The Glorious Ones” by Joan Marcus; “Young Frankenstein” by Paul
Kolnik.
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