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What you are holding in your hand is something increasingly rare in the self-contained, sometimes slightly self-absorbed world of New York Musical Theater: a fresh new score, written by a bright new voice demanding to be heard.
Ladies and Gentlemen, won't you welcome, please - Mel Brooks!
Yes, Mel Brooks. Screenwriter, director, comedy writer, comedian, actor - and now, Broadway auteur.
Not that this is Mr. Brooks's first crack at writing songs. On the contrary, for nearly forty years, he has been turning out a steady stream of gloriously nutty compositions, ranging from the Oscar-nominated title song from Blazing Saddles, to the Stone Age national anthem sung by the Two Thousand Year Old Man: "Let 'em all go to hell, except Cave Seventy-six!"
So, it was with eager anticipation that I recently settled into a seat at the Cadillac Palace Theater in Chicago to see the last pre-Broadway performance of The Producers, the new Mel Brooks musical based on his movie of the same name.
Eager anticipation tinged with trepidation.
Why? Because The Producers is one of the great,
unique, impossible-to-duplicate screen comedies of all time, and as the house lights dimmed and the overture began, I asked myself if re-imagining the movie as a musical was really a good idea.
Ten minutes later, at the end of an opening number as giddy, exhilarating, and flat-out funny as any I had seen since Sondheim's "Comedy Tonight," I knew the answer.
It was not just a good idea. It was a great idea.
"The King of Broadway" begins as the curtain comes down on the opening (and closing) night performance of Funny Boy, producer Max Bialystock's musical adaptation of Hamlet. It ends with a demoralized Bialystock standing in a trash barrel in the middle of Shubert Alley, lamenting the show business heights from which he has fallen.
My shows were always filled with class,
The best Champagnes would fill my glass,
My lap was filled with gorgeous-
Well, you get the idea.
Fueled by an uncensored, unselfconscious chutzpah which blows through the theater like an invigorating breath of fresh air, this number stops a show which has barely started.
And like "Comedy Tonight," it
tells the audience all they need to know about
the tone and style of the entertainment that is
to follow.
The Producers is, of course, a new musical. But
ticket buyers take note, it is not a new Musical Vaudeville, or a new Musical Play, or a
new
Musical Theater Piece. It is that thing which used
to be ubiquitous on Broadway, but which is now
as rare as a tasteful Mel Brooks punch line.
A new Musical Comedy.
Here is Brooks: "I grew up with all the great shows - Oklahoma! and High-Button Shoes and Bells Are Ringing. And that's what you're going to get here ... an old-fashioned, traditional musical comedy."
Yes, indeed. And like all
true musical comedies,
The Producers has one, uncomplicated goal. It aims
to please. That it succeeds
in doing so, so completely,
and with such gusto, is in
no small measure a tribute
to the vivid delights of
Brooks's traditional musical comedy score.
Listen to these songs. They are open and accessible - audience friendly, like the best scores of the '40s and '50s. Ballads, specialty numbers, eleven o'clock numbers - all the traditional elements are here. Indeed, Brooks has acknowledged proudly that in crafting his score he has drawn his inspiration from the classic achievements of Broadway's classic composers. The Richard Rodgers ballad ("'Til Him"), the Jule Styne production number ("I Wanna Be a Producer"), the romantic throw-away of a Porter or a Gershwin
("That Face").
But if these are genre songs, there is nothing generic about any of them.
To begin with, there are the lyrics, brimming with Brooks's distinctive, inimitable wit. Listen for the breathless run of twelve consecutive rhymes at the end of "The King of Broadway," and couplets which
no one will ever mistake for Oscar Hammerstein: We're marching to a faster pace/Look out, here comes the Master Race!
More importantly, each of these songs is informed by a sensibility and spirit, which is uniquely Mel Brooks. Brazen and bawdy, to be sure. But also sweet and innocent in a way which is as engaging as it is disarming.
After all, how could a show which begins with a sight gag at the expense of a blind beggar, which fills the stage with sex-starved old ladies dancing desperately with walkers, which makes Adolf Hitler the centerpiece of one of the greatest production numbers since "Hello, Dolly!" ever be described as sweet and innocent?
The answer is the author. Because for all of Brooks's bluster and outrageousness, there lives inside his humor a generosity of spirit, which permeates
everything he writes.
The score of The Producers does not simply invite the audience to have a good time, it endorses the idea of having a good time; it embraces it, and celebrates it, so that the idea of letting yourself go in laughter, without restraint, with no holds barred, with no limits and no rules, without a net, becomes more than just a way to have fun, it becomes wise information about how to live your life.
Of course, one man does not make a musical. And one of the great achievements of The Producers is the way in which some of the best talent on Broadway has been able to step into the World According to
Mel and make it their own. To wit:
• The incomparable Susan Stroman, ringmaster of all this musical mayhem, whose direction and choreography lovingly captures every nuance of Brooks's work, and whose capacity for enhancing it with comic invention of her own is simply breathtaking; • Co-stars Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, whose performances embody the angst-driven energy of their cinematic predecessors, but who add a warmth and heart which makes their screwball relationship genuinely affecting;
• A design team of Robin Wagner, William Ivey Long, and Peter Kaczorowski, who have never done wittier work, each of them using his own bag of tricks to deliver true Brooksian belly laughs;
• Long-time Brooks collaborator and savvy book writer without peer, Tom Meehan;
• Glen Kelly's inspired dance arrangements and overall masterful musical supervision;
• And finally, brilliant man-of-the-theater Mike Ockrent, whose exuberance and zest for life were a match for Mel's, and whose early work on The Producers was instrumental in developing the path that it would follow to opening night.
Mel Brooks has described The Producers as his love letter to Broadway. Enough with the liner notes. Open the letter, listen,
and enjoy.
John Weidman
Spring in New York, 1959. Evening. The scene is Shubert Alley, outside the Shubert Theatre, Broadway's famed house of hits. But not tonight. Because the curtain has just come down on producer Max Bialystock's latest fiasco, a musical version of Hamlet, called Funny Boy (Opening Night).
Later the same evening, Max (Nathan Lane), crushed but undaunted, stands in Shubert Alley surrounded by a ragtag chorus of after-midnight Broadway denizens. Angrily, he announces that he once was - and will be again - The King of Broadway.
A few days later, a nerdy, timid accountant, Leo Bloom (Matthew Broderick) shows up at Max's office to do his books. Leo casually notes that a producer could actually make more money with a flop than with a hit. "You could raise a million dollars, put on a hundred thousand dollar failure, and keep the rest for yourself." Max immediately seizes upon this idea and implores Leo to join him in this bold - albeit slightly illegal - scheme (We Can Do It).
Back at his desk in the miserably Dickensian accounting firm where he earns fifty dollars a week, Leo drifts into a fantasy, in which he is a famed Broadway impresario surrounded by a bevy of gorgeous chorus girls (I Wanna Be a Producer).
After quitting his job, Leo hurries off to join Max in his office. They go into business together as "Bialystock & Bloom, Theatrical Producers." The partners' first order of business: Find the worst play ever written. They find it. A disaster, a catastrophe, a guaranteed-to-close-in-one-night beauty: Springtime for Hitler, A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden, written by a nutsy neo-Nazi playwright and pigeon fancier named Franz Liebkind.
We now meet Liebkind (Brad Oscar), on the rooftop of his Greenwich Village tenement, as he reminisces with his homing pigeons about the good old days In Old Bavaria. When Max and Leo now turn up on the rooftop, Franz is overjoyed that they wish to produce his play on Broadway. He refuses to permit them to do so, however, until they agree to join him in singing and dancing Hitler's favorite tune, Der Guten Tag Hop-Clop. Max and Leo hop, clop and ultimately depart with Franz's signature on a Broadway contract. Next stop, the Upper East Side townhouse of Broadway's worst director, Roger de Bris (Gary Beach) and his "common-law assistant" Carmen Ghia (Roger Bart). Roger wants nothing to do with Springtime - "World War Two? Too dark, too depressing!" - and is joined by Carmen and his production team in
proclaiming his credo: Keep It Gay. Roger is finally persuaded by Max and Leo to direct Springtime.
Back in the office, triumphant, with the Broadway rights to the worst play ever written and a signed contract with the worst director who ever lived, Max and Leo are visited by a knockout of a Swedish blonde named Ulla (Cady Huffman). She wishes to audition for them, and audition she does, all over the office (When You Got It, Flaunt It).
Next step, the money. Max sets out to raise
two million dollars by launching himself into
Little Old Lady Land. His description of how he
does "it" (Along Came Bialy) segues into a
full-company Act One finale celebrating
Bialystock & Bloom's forthcoming Broadway
production of Springtime for Hitler, "a new
neo-Nazi musical."
Act Two opens in Bialystock & Bloom's office, now totally redone by Ulla in Swedish-modern.
When Ulla and Leo are left alone by Max, they
reveal their mutual stirrings
of love (That Face).
Auditions. Who will play the coveted role of Adolf Hitler? Franz Liebkind sweeps away all other contenders with his razzmatazz Broadway rendition of the ever-popular Haben Sie gehÖrt das deutsche Band?
Once again outside the Shubert Theatre - this time it is Opening Night (Reprise) for Springtime for Hitler. Leo commits a huge theatrical gaffe when he innocently wishes everyone "good luck." Roger, Carmen and Franz, aghast, immediately explain to him that you Never Say Good Luck on OpEning Night. Meanwhile Max, to ensure failure, is sneakily saying "good luck" to everyone in sight. As bad luck would have it, Franz breaks his leg, and Roger nervously agrees to go on as Hitler in his place. Now onstage at the Shubert Theatre, Roger, as Hitler, leads the company in a spirited salute to the Third Reich (Springtime for Hitler). Disaster! It's a success! The critics love Springtime, calling it "a satirical masterpiece," "a surprise smash," and "the best musical of the decade." Stunned and bewildered, Max and Leo stagger back to their office where they recite their litany of woe: Where Did We Go Right? Max is arrested, and Leo scrams to Rio with Ulla and the two million dollars.
Alone in a jail cell awaiting trial, Max is crushed to get a postcard from Leo and Ulla cheerfully letting him know what a great time they are having without him. Tossing aside the card, Max vents his anger and dismay (Betrayed).
A courtroom. Max has been found guilty and is about to be sentenced when Leo bursts in, back from Rio to turn himself in and take his place at Max's side. Why did he come back? Because in Rio - even though he had Ulla and two million dollars, everything he'd ever dreamed of - he realized what Max really meant to him ('Til Him). Max and Leo are together again, and will be for some time to come. They've been
sentenced to five years in Sing Sing.
Sing Sing. Max and Leo put on their all-singing,
all-dancing, all-convict production, Prisoners of Love.
Good news! Having brought "joy and laughter into the
hearts of every murderer, rapist and sex maniac in
Sing Sing," the governor has granted them a full
pardon! They're free! Next stop, Broadway!
The stage of the Shubert. The Broadway version of
Bialystock & Bloom's Prisoners of Love is reprised
in all its glitzy glory, starring Roger de Bris and a
chorus of gorgeous, scantily-clad girl convicts.
Finally, the scene is once again Shubert Alley,
where Leo and Max, on top of the world as
Broadway's most successful producers,
celebrate to the tune of Prisoners of Love
(leo & max). Happy at last, they walk off
into the sunset as the final curtain falls.
At the end of the bows, Max and Leo
lead the entire company in a final
farewell (Goodbye!).
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