[NEohioPAL] Review of "The Producers" at the CVLT

[Bob Abelman]

CVLT's 'Producers' proves that bigger sometimes better 

 

Bob Abelman

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times, Geauga Times Courier

Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 

 

This review appeared in the Times papers 7/30/10

 

More often than not, theatrical productions are constrained by the nature of the plays themselves.

 

Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, for example, begs to be simply staged.  Just a handful of guys in a bare or barren environment are all that is required. A theater doing more would overwhelm the subtle absurdity of the work.    

 

Mel Brooks' musical comedy The Producers, by contract, is all about big.  In fact, the bigger, the broader, the better.

 

Anything less would undermine Brooks' blatantly sophomoric humor and the haymaker punch lines seen coming a mile away.

 

Understatement would fly in the face of the unapologetically offensive stereotypes and larger-than-life personalities that define his characters.

 

Small completely misses the point of his self-consciously lavish and intentionally overproduced song and dance numbers.  

 

The Producers features Max Bialystock, an unscrupulous Broadway producer riding a stream of monumental failures.  His counterpart, Leo Bloom, is a walking anxiety attack with the dream of quitting accounting and becoming a Broadway producer. The two become partners when they realize that a guaranteed flop can generate a huge profit if sold to an excess of gullible investors.

 

Max and Leo find the worst play, cast the worst actors, acquire the worst director, and stage Springtime for Hitler.  The show is a musical love letter to the Third Reich, and includes scantily clad showgirls, goose-stepping and tap-dancing Nazis and-upon the recommendation of the show's director in the song "Keep it Gay"-the most effeminate Hitler imaginable.  

 

The only thing big about the Chagrin Valley Little Theater production of The Producers,  on stage through August 21, is the mistake it made in taking on this musical.  

 

As its name implies, the CVLT is a little theater.  It is impossible to stage lavish production numbers on its small space, which is made even smaller by Edmond Wolf's attractive but cumbersome set pieces and the large hole in the middle of the stage through which the music director cues the performers.

 

To accommodate these space constraints, fewer singers and dancers take the stage which, in turn, transforms lavish into something significantly less. The intended parade of showgirls at the start of the big "Springtime for Hitler" number, for example, is limited to two in this production.  Choreographer Jennifer Leinweber-Ritz has a difficult time filling the show's lengthy musical numbers with activity because of such a small, albeit talented, ensemble to work with.  

 

The musical numbers are further compromised by an orchestra lacking in quantity and quality.  Under the direction of D. Keith Stiver, the music is anemic and frequently out of sync with the performers' energy, as well as when the performers begin and finish singing.

 

The blatantly offensive stereotypes Brooks uses to populate The Producers are rendered harmless and hilarious if approached bravely and with the pedal to the metal.  Gary Samarin as Springtime's flamboyant director Roger DeBris and Don Pedley as Roger's common law assistant, Carmen Ghia, do not accomplish this.  Neither do the players in most of the smaller roles.

 

Tom Hill and Nathan Earley get Brooks' humor and generate some really good business for their characters, Max and Leo.  Hill's Max exudes a Danny Divito-esque sleaze that is delightful while Earley's Leo is a tightly wound bundle of nerves ready to twitch.  They both handle their musical numbers quite nicely.  

 

Unfortunately, neither performer ventures beyond singular traits to define his character's key characteristics.  Max's mania is little more than volume and parading around using baby steps in rapid succession.  Leo's chronic meekness and his random panic attacks are not the hilarious extreme opposites they need to be because neither is sufficiently extreme.  Both players are fun; neither is formative.

 

Kat Clover as Ulla, Max and Leo's sexy Swedish secretary, and Chad Duwe as Franz Liebkind, Springtime's fascist but fun-loving playwright, are wonderful.   They play their roles to the hilt and have fun doing so.  Their moments on stage are the show's highlights.  

 

Toward the end of the play, after Springtime proves to be a huge Broadway hit, Max and Leo lament their financial ruin by singing the song "Where Did We Go Right?"  It is likely that neither CVLT producer Carolyn Barnhard nor this production's director, J.E. Ballantyne, Jr., is humming along.

 

The Producers continues through August 21 at the Chagrin Valley Little Theatre, 56 River Street, Chagrin Falls.  For tickets, $14 to $18, call 440-247-8955 or visit www.cvlt.org.

 
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