Young Frankenstein

Jagged light and booming thunder punctuate the schlocky fright-score chords of Mel Brooks’s overture to Young Frankenstein. And, true to horror-movie clichés, lightning will strike twice—and thrice—before the night is out. Just don’t take such meteorological activity as a sign that Brooks has repeated his 2001 blockbuster, The Producers. Rather, this bloated, robotic, astonishingly unfunny behemoth has been cobbled together from spare parts: Brooks and Gene Wilder’s 1974 comedy classic, plus tired metashowbiz winks, lame new gags and joke tunes, and millions of dollars’ worth of spectacle. Add some fake electricity (courtesy of director-choreographer Susan Stroman), and you have a monster that can barely walk, much less dance its way into our hearts. In other words: It’s not alive! Not alive!

Much has changed on Broadway since The Producers allegedly reanimated American musical comedy. Carried away by critical hyperbole and the smell of a homegrown megahit, the industry lavished Brooks with awards—not all of them deserved. (Yes, The Full Monty was robbed.) However, once marquee names Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick left the show, it limped to death on declining word of mouth. In the meantime, the Great White Way has become awash in light, tuneful diversions. Avenue Q, The Drowsy Chaperone and Xanadu all traffic in the cheeky, self-conscious theatricality and lowbrow yuks that Brooks rode to glory—but with more wit and style. How, then, could he top himself?

He can’t, and the only option is to supersize the cheap material with gargantuan sets, busier dance numbers and eye-popping special effects, then stick the monstrosity in the barnlike Hilton Theatre. Whereas the original movie was quirky and silly, its mock-gothic atmospherics undercut by sex jokes and Teutonic ribbing, Stroman’s overblown production raises a question of scale: Can a show this large and expensive still be funny? Robin Wagner’s massive sets—an airplane-hanger-size laboratory and numerous elaborate locales—make The Producers look restrained and homey by comparison. Similarly, Stroman’s busy, bland dances resort to the multiplied-sight-gag approach—typified by the dance of the little old ladies from The Producers—not once but twice: first with a dopey proliferation of mad scientists and their hot female assistants; later with a stage full of chorus members in boots and facial stitches that match the Monster’s, backing him in a metastasized version of “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” It’s as if the creators need to convince themselves of the mass-marketability of their wares.

Such worries are warranted: Young Frankenstein is fatally riven by two inherent contradictions. First, Brooks & Co. want to give us a totally trivial score and book that we’ll never forget—that we might even pay $450 for. Young Frankenstein is a dandy film, but it’s ultimately just a clever 106-minute sketch with impressive art direction and a killer cast. The Producers (onscreen and onstage) has a good story, a great twist and characters you can care about. Here, the shapeless material offers no base on which to build a show of any resonance—comical or emotional.

Second, the producers expect Broadway troupers to carry this show and sell its Grade-C material without making the brand dependent on celebrities. This impossible dream leads to an uneven cast and mixed priorities. In the title role, Roger Bart severely disappoints. The manic, hardworking performer simply strains too hard to convey the inner madness that came effortlessly to Gene Wilder. Bart is just not funny enough to lift his material out of vulgarity and old-man schmaltziness. As winsome assistant Inga, Sutton Foster is cute and versatile but plastic. Megan Mullally flails about with the show’s worst songs. Christopher Fitzgerald’s Igor elicits some laughs with his childlike, hunchbacked gamboling. Smartly underplaying her role as the horse-frightening Flau Blucher, Andrea Martin comes off best. I’d say that Martin stole the show, if there were really anything to steal. As for Brooks, he’ll probably keep plundering the graves of his past work, but he should spend more time in the laboratory.