WPCNR 8-ROWS UP CENTER LEFT. Theatrical Review by John F. Bailey. August 16, 2008 UPDATED WITH SLICKS: This reporter is thrilled to be making his debut review of his favorite funny movie, The Producers — also making its Westchester professional stage debut at Westchester Broadway Theatre — of Mel Brooks’ first movie and his best
“BIALEEESCHTOCK AND BLOOOOOOME!” “The Producer-Pros” Robert Amaral (right) as Max Bialystock and Joel Newsome as his accountant sidekick, Leo Bloom (left) are a team with their own style, chemistry, schtick and timing. Karyn McNay (the blonde always gets the ink on Broadway) as Ulla steals the show.
Observers of the Broadway stage version of The Producers, told your reporter WBT’s staging Thursday evening was as entertaining as the Broadway version with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, although Robert Amaral (Max) and Joel Newsome (Leo Bloom) were not Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. My consultants still thought it was terrific. As Mel Brooks might put it, “You’ll laugh til you plotz”
From the moment the two Usherette cuties, Karen Hyland and Tracy Wholf (in the slick below, in red) snap you to visual attention in an inviting pas de deux in their spiffy uniform epaulets on Shubert Alley you’re whisked into bygone Broadway. You listen in on what the critics and opening night audience are saying about Max Bialystock’s latest production, Funny Boy!
You’re hooked into the Damon Runyon world of the unscrupulous Broadway hustler. This nifty little number with the two cuties sets the tone as the bustle of a Broadway opening night excitement is stirred up like a glass swizzle stick swishes up a gin gimlet.
Mr. Amaral a comic mix of Jackie Gleason, Jack Lemmon, Jerry Orbach and Zero Mostel wild-eyed lunacy wins your sympathy, as every con-man does, from the first opening and closing night, when Max laments his fate singing The King of Broadway, with various street ne’er do wells after critics kill his Funny Boy with a chorus of opening nighters singing comments like “we’re in shock, who produced this schlock?” Lyrics to die for throughout!
When Leo Bloom, played by the obsequious Gene Wilder look-alike, Newsome, comes to do Mr. Bialystock’s books, a double shot of champagne cocktail with a foamy stein of beer chaser of mirth, mayhem and hysteria raises the roof of the good old WBT.
Amaral and Newsome carry off a fast-talking, gag-every-five-seconds book, mesh with perfect comic timing, emote, overact, and go over the top for a full 2 hours and 45 minutes with 30 minute intermission included. The daffy duo drives this madcap, bratwurst and sausage stuffed, tasteless chaotic hoot of a play with the deadpans, the personalities of the masters Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder who created the roles.
They’re not Zero and Gene or Nathan and Matthew, but they are their own Max and Leo and the chemistry is there. Trust me, you’re gonna love it.
Amaral and Newsome should, they’re Producer pros. They’ve played the parts on the road across the country. WBT has spared no effort to mount their own Producers as it should be mounted.
The blonde bombshell from the middle west, the iconette Karyn McNay, (also a veteran of The Producers road show) as the Swedish receptionist Ulla, (played by the fluffy Lee Meredith in the original movie), delightfully stops the show. She’s the top — every moment she flaunts, flows, undulates, and struts across the stage — giving us a combination of Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, and Madonna as Ulla (lots of Swedish Last names) the hopeful who drops by Max’s office.
Just as Max and Leo do, Ms. McNay stops the train of thought and gets another train started — but does not stop the whip-crackling dialogue! Her Swedish accent is a little thick, but I am not going to quibble! She is worth going off to Rio with– but that would be telling too much. Here she works her wiles on Leo, Mr. Newsome after redirecting Max’s office.
Her precocious, naughty When you Got it Flaunt it when she delivers an audition for Max and Leo, reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe’s My Heart Belongs to Daddy — is a show-topper — in which she encourages all to “show their assets” among other things that gets the house laughing uncontrolably.
The audience was in a fine mood, thanks to Leo’s deciding to move into the producing business with Max. You know the story, don’t you, pally? Leo, doing Max’s books suggests you could make more money with a flop. Max sees this as his salvation and pleads with Bloom to join him in “We Can do It!”
Joel Newsome’s (Leo’s) dingy offices down on Chambers Street are cleverly created on the stage with a set of cubicles, (great concept by scene designer Peter Barbieri, Jr.)where Bloom is dominated by a CPA who bridles at “the revolting stench of self esteem” in his accountants. Bloom decides he’s not going to take it any more and sings I Want to be a Producer” in a fine soft shoe. Ahh, the seduction of the great white way! I want to be a producer too.
Great set-up but the first act — an hour and a half of it — that flies by — introduces you to Max’s source of finances…the Little Old Ladies — typified by Hold-me Touch-Me, a “little old lady” whose hilarious lust breaks up the audience in a comic tryst with Max. I have to tell you Amy Griffin as Hold-me Touch-Me grapples with Max hilariously here as he pleads with her for “the checky.”
The Producers, Max and Leo set off to find the worst play — Springtime for Hitler, A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva in the Burtesgarden. They go to meet the playwright tending his pigeons played by Eric Anderson. What a character! He makes them take the oath of allegiance to der Fuerher but you will see where this is going.
Then it’s off to find the world’s worst director, Roger De Bris where the duo meet a different world. They meet his companion and servant, the utterly divine Carmen Ghia played by John West, whose exits and entrances milk the audience for laughs until they are gasping. He is too funny in his send-ups. It is illegal for Mr. West to be this funny. Mr. West is the gay man’s gay man. When Roger is finally introduced in drag, he first objects to doing the musical about Hitler, singing Keep It Gay, an admonishment to producers everywhere in selecting a play. Every scene in this play is stand-alone funny in and of itself.
Act One raps up with Max and the Little Old Ladies performing a song and dance routine with walkers ad Max sets about raising the cash with his “backers“ — you have to see how those walkers set a new standard in choreography props — and they all sing Along Came Bialy together. That’s Mr. West as Carmen Ghia on far right, front with Craig Fols as the director, Roger De Bris, with Max and Leo, of course.
After Act One’s assault on sensibilities and all that is politically correct, you need that 30-minute intermission. The energy of this cast is astounding and was rewarded with “bravos” going to intermission. But then it’s Broadway baby.
Act Two takes us to rehearsals and auditions — hilarious in and of themselves — and the playwright the obsessed Nazi adorer, Franz Liebkind wins the part of Hitler. As he arrives for opening night, he breaks his leg and Roger the director assumes the part.
Max and Leo singing You Never Say Good Luck on Opening Night
Springtime for Hitler opens in the most outrageously outrageous, funny as Hell scene WBT has ever staged. Chorus girls with beer steins for headgear, draped in sausages and steins, German Eagles for headresses with brown shirted Nazi troopers singing Springtime for Hitler and Germany. Dazzling lighting by Andrew Gmoser makes the scene one you will always remember. It’s offensive. It’s schlock. It’s shock. Beyond tasteless. But hysterical. I defy you not to laugh. It goes on forever with bursting voluptuousness of bratwurst and the foamy head of a beer. I especially like the chorus girls in the little Panzer Tanks. Kudos to the costume guy, Matthew Hemesath.
You are then introduced to Craig Fols (Roger De Bris) as Der Fuehrer who sings “Heil Myself” with Karyn McKay’s Ms.Ulla strutting herself once more. Fols is “over the roof” hysterical in this bit.
So the play is a hit. The critics love it. But the playwright feels mocked. He goes berserk and attempts to shoot Leo and Max, missing of course which ends Max up in a courtroom when the cops discover two sets of books.
How the muscial meanders its hilarious way to send us into the summer night grinning and satisfied, you cannot beat it. Be warned though — the jokes are dirty. The “F-word” is said. It is a sexy show. It is a show that has won the most Tonys in history. And by the way has grossed $214 Million on the road since 2002.
Highlights — Bob Amaral’s incredible soliloquy Betrayed where he recaps the entire play grousing about how things have turned out. Mr. Newsome’s Til Him extolling male bonding.
The WBT real life “Producers” Bill Stutler and Bob Funking have assembled a huge cast, a bouncy, comically gifted orchestra and used video screens, multi-level stages and imaginative to their maximum creativity, and allowed veteran Producers-maven David Edwards to direct The Producers Producers.
Edwards the director, played Bialystock and Bloom in the First National Tour. He brings a sure, deft hand for timing, choregraphy and nuance that paces the madcap show that sprawls and ripples like a too tight dress on a buxom blonde — it’s overflowing, cleavage the works — too much to take in all at once, yet comprehensive, dramatic, and spectacularly schmaltzy and schnappsy to this box office sure-thing.
Hats off to the orchestra behind the scenes under the baton of Leo Carusone — maniacal, frantic, Chaplinesque music…underplaying the singers splendidly. Sound was slick throughout. Best set: the evocative perspective view out of Max’s office with the theatre marquees.
So you go see it twice, baby. And, did I mention you get dinner included in the price of your ticket? What a steal!
If you have not seen The Producers on Broadway, or have seen it, or not seen the movie call for tickets now. But go see it again, and you won’t care about today’s economy.
You’ll also wish someone would produce a full-length musical Springtime for Hitler.
We also need a musical now about “The Developers.” I have plenty of material, Mr. Bialystock! Read this book!
My consultants, the Broadway experts say it is the best show WBT has ever done. Call the box office before it’s too late, 914-592-2222 or the WBT website box office, www.broadwaytheatre.com.
Seen on Press Night:
The dynamic former morning information and entertainment team on WFAS Radio encountered each other. The newsman who brought Westchester up to date, Peter Katz, (now appearing weekly on White Plains Week, left, and the morning man, Bob E. Lloyd who for decades read those school closings, and got Westchester off and working Monday through Friday. Mr. Lloyd came in especially for Press Night. It was good to see him again. It was good to see Mr. Katz, too, Westchester’s most distinguished and accurate news analyst.
