The Producers

by David Anthony Fox

theater review

Here's my cardinal rule for attending the theater (also useful for family gatherings and one-night stands): Keep your expectations low.

Take The Producers. If you had the good fortune to stumble on this cute musical without any prior knowledge, you'd probably laugh a lot. But come to the show (particularly in the threadbare national tour temporarily holding court at the Merriam) primed for one of the great events of your theatergoing life and you're cruising for a bruising.

Has any musical ever been so over-hyped? One would think that Ben Brantley, chief drama critic of The New York Times, is a paid publicist, so often and excessively has he inflated The Producers' modest charms. Then there's the record-breaking 12 Tony Awards lavished on the show.

"At last!" critics and the public seem to be saying. "The Golden Age of Musicals is back!"

Well, yes if your idea of a Golden Age Musical is Subways Are for Sleeping or Mame: tuneful, unchallenging fare. The show does have a superb comic setup (for the two people who might not already know, it's that Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom realize they can make lots of money producing a Broadway flop, and proceed to mount a musical called Springtime for Hitler). And creator Mel Brooks can write a great joke, though most of this script (with lines like "He's the first person to do summer stock in the winter!") is hoary borscht belt stuff.

In the end, The Producers depends utterly on the charisma of its two lead actors. If they're Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick (or better yet, Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder), the thinness of the material can be forgiven, even forgotten.

Here, however, we're painfully aware of the tour's second-class standing. As Max, Bob Amaral dutifully recycles Nathan Lane's shtick -- elaborate double takes, sidelong glances, etc. -- without ever investing it with star quality. Still, this puts him one up on Andy Taylor (Leo), who seems to be walking through the show without giving a second thought to character or motivation. Taylor is a withered Bloom indeed.

That the producers of The Producers would consider this pair -- on whose collective countenance "Road Company" could not be writ larger -- to be up to the task is shockingly cynical. Fortunately, the supporting cast, including some refugees from Broadway, is at least competent.

Otherwise, it's a pale evening, with even the backdrop spotlights looking pretty dim.

The Producers

Through Feb. 8, Merriam Theater, 250 S. Broad St., 215-336-1234

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