The Producers: Alvina Ruprecht speaks to Ottawa Morning host Stu Mills.
CBO
Host Stu Mills: Some people called it outrageous and other people called it insulting. Others said that it was the most brilliant musical that had ever hit Broadway. Our theatre critic, Alvina Ruprecht, has been to see the new Orpheus production of the show. She’s in the studio this morning. Hello, Alvina.
AR: Hello, Stu.
CBO: What were people doing ? Were they leaving the theatre in a huff at the very beginning of it all? .
AR: No, no. They weren’t.
CBO: They weren’t?
AR: Oh, no. No, not at all. Somebody left, but I think they were going to the bathroom and then they came back.
CBO: So they weren’t leaving in a huff.
AR: Absolutely not. There were, in fact, howls of laughter from an audience that, to my mind, was having a lot of fun because I felt that they really understood Brooks’ special, provocative sense of humour. Our values have changed a bit, I think.
CBO: Interesting that in nine years we could measure that effect, or nearly measure it. So tell me about The Producers. What’s it about?
AR: Well, a Broadway producer called Max and his accountant friend, Leo Bloom, decide to put on a bad musical. The plan is to oversell shares to the production – because these are obviously very expensive undertakings – to make it a flop on purpose. The point being that if the show closes quickly they can keep the money because the investors won’t expect to make anything and no one will audit the books. They call this BAD musical . Hitler in Springtime” [sic] – the title is already in very bad taste obviously. Hitler is played by a drag queen by an actor ( Réjean Dinelle-Mayer ) who is also supposed to be portraying a director who is himself a drag queen. So it’s a campy musical about making a campy musical and it’s all a big send up where everything and anything (including musical theatre itself) is taken way over the top.
CBO: I can imagine it’s the Hitler humour that caused the outrage when the show first came out.
AR: Yes, yes, no doubt because the subject was considered too delicate given recent history. And obviously people were not amused. People couldn’t see Nazis as funny. They’re monsters. But Brooks was ahead of his time, I think, and he uses angry parody and comedy as a most devastating form of criticism. Here, the staging shows that he was inspired by Charlie Chaplin, the Marx Brothers and a generation of Jewish stand-up comics, as well as wildly outrageous transvestites and all manner of gay performers who, by the way, were also Nazi targets as Ronnie Burkett’s puppets always show us Thanks to this staging, Brooks’ vengeance is complete. It really was brilliant, I thought. Note, too, that Brooks is not making fun of Germans. He’s making fun of Nazis. There’s a big difference.
CBO: And how did it work for you?
AR: Well, I loved it. Mel Brooks is extremely talented. He wrote the music and his book is also extremely clever. He knows contemporary theatre and literature, so we have Kafka and James Joyce meeting La Cage aux Folles. But there are a lot of inside jokes for different groups of people so that no one is excluded. The Producers becomes a bit of titillation for white middle-class America, a playful romp for a queer audience, a really sexy adventure for the elderly because there is that band of 90-year-old nymphomaniac grannies whose number with the clunking walkers on stage was the funniest thing in the show. “And I want to do it standing up on a swing,” screams one of them off stage where all sorts of naughty things are going on in the wings. Really!! There were jokes for the leather and whip crowd, there was traditional music and masses of Jewish jokes. There were jokes for lovers of angry political satire; for people who work in the theatre, jokes for people who hate censorship of the arts, and those who hate paying taxes. And many, many more. So everybody is happy here. But mostly, Hitler gets it in the gut. He really gets it in the gut.
CBO: This sounds like a lot to follow, a lot to stage. How did it work? And how did the staging work?
AR: Well, the staging worked beautifully. They really had it going magnificently. The pace was good pace, good energy, and a magnificent set, first, by Jennifer Donnelly who moved between glitzy kitsch and smooth contemporary elegance. Watch out for Cynthia Sandy[sic]’s Wagnerian Tsatska’s from Bavaria with the pretzels on their heads. Her costumes were out of this world. And, you know something, this almost becomes a Brooks parody of the Nazi notion of the degenerate art that all the best contemporary artists were accused of at that time. Brooks makes fun of the way the Nazi,s reacted to contemporary art here. That’s also how I saw this. Some of the dancing was a bit weak, but under the splendid guidance of director Richard Elichuk it all came together beautifully and any of the weaknesses just melted away. You didn’t even notice them.
CBO: Now, I see the performances were good, but you’re leaving some of the worst for last I assume?
AR: No, no! It gets better and better. Shaun Toohey is Max Bialystock, the producer of the title, actually reminded me of Broadway actor Stubby Kaye. He was that excellent. Remember him from Guys and Dolls?
CBO: Yup, I do remember that name.
AR: You’re a bit young. You probably didn’t see that.
CBO: Don’t hold that against me.
AR: No, I won’t. Also, very good was young Kodi Cannon as Leo Bloom, the accountant. Cannon can sing, dance and act, and he looks like a star. He’s going to go places, I think. There was a very entertaining David McLaughlin as Nazi playwright Franz Leibkind, a raving survivor of the old Order. There was the brilliant Réjean Dinelle-Mayer as Roger Libris [sic] with his cohorts of young friends around him. He also played Hitler with the Charlie Chaplin body language and the added touch of hysteria. . There was his common law secretary, Bryan Jesmer, with the most beautiful voice. There was the Swedish bombshell, Ulla, played by DeeDee Butters who is a bit of Anita Eckberg and Marilyn Monroe all rolled into one. And it got wilder and wilder as the evening went on. And I almost choked laughing, it was so good.
CBO: Would you go see it again?
AR: Yes, I would. Absolutely. I certainly would. I have rarely felt so strongly about an Orpheus production.
CBO: I can’t remember hearing you so enthusiastic about anything…that’s for sure.
AR: It struck a special chord with me too. This Orpheus production is a dazzling piece of comic genius with staging that captures all levels of satire that Brooks could have possibly wanted. I think he would have loved this if he’d seen it. So, go see it. Don’t miss it.
CBO: And you weren’t, before all this, a fan of Mel Brooks’ films.
AR: No, that’s right. And I almost find he works – at least in this case – much better on stage because he is completely over the top and cinema doesn’t always work that way too well, you know. It’s too obvious.
CBO: It would appear too stagy.
AR: That’s right whereas theatre lends itself to hyper theatrical performances of this sort..and they made the best of it…
CBO: Well, this is quite a recommendation. This is The Producers. It plays at Centrepointe Theatre until June 13th. Tickets – you have to call Centrepointe. The number there is 580-2700.
Review transcribed by the Orpheus Musical theatre company from the on air broadcast.
My thanks to them for this. It first appeared on their site http://orpheus-theatre.ca/reviews-the-producers-ruprecht.php