Director thinks 'Young Frankenstein' is just what the country needs

(Editor's note: This story has been changed since it was originally published to correct the name of Mel Brooks' co-author in the play "Young Frankenstein." Brooks wrote it with Thomas Meehan, not Gene Wilder as indicated in the earlier version of this story.)

According to Broadway director/choreographer Susan Stroman many people were hungry for laughter after 9/11. "The sense of trauma was so intense," Stroman says. "The destruction, the death, the fear and the grief. Whether we knew it or not, we needed the kind of healing that imagination and laughter can offer. We had to seek out joy."

On hand to provide that sort of therapy was "The Producers," which Stroman masterminded. It is a show so giddy and silly, so imaginative and laughable, that it recalls the inspired lunacy of old-time vaudeville and burlesque at their best. "The Producers" is about scam artists who figure they can make a fortune by raising a lot of money to stage a sure-failure musical comedy called, yes, "Springtime for Hitler." "The Producers," based on a 1968 Mel Brooks movie, turned out to be the most celebrated Broadway show of 2001.

"Again, we have this grim mood settling over the country," Stroman continues. "The scandals in Washington, the terrible wars. I think at this point people are eager for relief. Some good belly laughs can't change a dreadful situation. But they can make life more livable. Fun and laughter help us get through inevitable troubles."

I was talking to Stroman last week in an oasis of quiet in the basement of the Paramount Theatre. Upstairs, all was purposeful clutter and organized confusion. Sound and lighting equipment poked out at odd angles from 30 huge shipping crates that filled half the lobby. Cables crisscrossed the floor. Hundreds of costumes, many of them fanciful versions of folkloric Middle European peasant garb, hung on a platoon of rolling clothes racks. Immense fiberglass leg bones lay on a marble staircase.

Stroman and Brooks are rehearsing a new round of laughter therapy: a stage adaptation of "Young Frankenstein." The show is based on a 1974 Brooks movie that satirized classic horror movies. Like the Hitler story, the Frankenstein monster legend can be horrific. But Brooks and his co-writer, Thomas Meehan, turned it into a hilarious and ribald farce.

"When you look at the history of the theater," Stroman says, "you see this pattern repeating. During the First World War, the Depression, the Second World War, light-hearted musical comedies were very popular."

Then along came dozens of troubling shows: "Miss Saigon," "Phantom of the Opera," "Les Miserables," "Kiss of the Spider Woman," "Evita" and "Falsettos." Even lighter musicals, such as "Cats," "A Chorus Line" and the sophisticated works of Stephen Sondheim, had an edge of direness and irony.

"I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with the more serious shows," Stroman says. (She has, after all, been involved in various edgy works, including "Show Boat" and "Don Giovanni.") "But when you think about what people need just now, more worry is not on the list."

So, don't worry. Following incredible perils, young Frankenstein does indeed get the girl. And his monster gets the other girl. The story is on a par with such recent Broadway exercises in unrestrained lunacy as "Hairspray," "The Wedding Singer" and "Spamalot."

"When I talk about the need for laughter, it's based on things that I have seen over and over as I stand at the backs of theaters watching audiences," Stroman says. "People can come in looking preoccupied and grumpy. And it's like a miracle. They leave looking joyous. The mood lift may be temporary. But it's real. ...

"I'll give you an example. As I was standing in the back of the theater before a performance of 'The Producers' I saw a man and a woman and a teenage girl come by. The girl was obviously undergoing chemotherapy. She looked sad and exhausted. And her parents looked worried. I kept watching them. Eventually they started laughing. By the time the show was over, they were transformed. They were laughing as they came up the aisle. The girl was hugging her parents.

"I was so moved!"

Both Stroman and Brooks can speak from experience when it comes to offering testimonials on behalf of the comedy industry. Stroman's husband, Mike Ockrent, was supposed to have been the director of "The Producers." When he died of leukemia, Stroman took over as director and choreographer.

"Working hard with very funny people doesn't take your grief away," Stroman says. "But it does give you a reprieve. Your whole day doesn't have to be nothing but sorrow. I was lucky to be involved in putting 'The Producers' together."

This time it is Brooks who is finding some solace in the hard work of producing seemingly effortless amusement. At about the time he was getting started on the musical stage adaptation of "Young Frankenstein" two years ago, his wife, Anne Bancroft, died of cancer.

Talking about the state of Broadway today, Stroman says, "It's intriguing, the theme of 'Young Frankenstein': bringing the dead back to life."

Indeed, in 1938 a play titled "The Fabulous Invalid" rendered Broadway as a business chronically in financial peril, always experiencing sensational recoveries. Perhaps the current influx of musical comedies can be seen as a transfusion of vitality, the 21st century's version of the fabulous invalid.

MEET THE CAST

Playing the title role in "Young Frankenstein" is stage and screen veteran Roger Bart. You may remember Bart as George Williams, the creepy pharmacist who was constantly trying to seduce Bree Van De Kamp in the ABC series "Desperate Housewives." "After I killed her husband and assaulted her psychiatrist -- all to no avail -- I ended up killing myself," Bart says. Bart's multiple TV credits include "Law & Order" and "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit." Seattle audiences have seen him in touring productions of "The Secret Garden," "Tommy" and "How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." "Roger is one of the smartest actors you'll ever meet," says director/choreographer Susan Stroman. "Not only does he know all his lines, he knows all of everyone else's lines for every scene. He's like Nathan Lane or Kevin Kline. He's a leader, he's good for the company. I'm glad he gets to play a real romantic hero for a change this time out, a real Errol Flynn role, complete with mustache."

Other featured performers are:

Megan Mullaly, best known as Karen Walker in the NBC series "Will and Grace." Mullaly plays Elizabeth, the socialite fiancée of prominent New York neurosurgeon Dr. Frederick Frankenstein. "Like Karen, Elizabeth is rich and spoiled," says Mullaly. "But Elizabeth is a virgin. That's a big difference. One of her big numbers is 'Deep Love,' a duet with the monster. By then they are lovers. Remember, bringing the monster to life involved greatly increasing the size of all organs. There may be a double entendre in that title 'Deep Love.' "

"Megan is a true theater animal," Stroman says. "At every rehearsal she always gives 100 percent. A true theater animal just has to do that, it's in their nature."

Sutton Foster plays Inga, Dr. Frankenstein's lab assistant and eventual true love. "When I saw Sutton play Millie in 'Thoroughly Modern Millie,' I was enthralled," Stroman says. "I was watching a star being born. She has usually played kind of gawky, tomboy types. Now she gets to be sexy." In addition to "Millie," Foster has a lot of stage credits and a few TV roles. To enhance her sex-object quotient in "Young Frankenstein," she has two different wigs -- both are blond.

Christopher Fitzgerald plays Igor, the unnerving hunchback who gloms onto Dr. F. when the doctor reaches his family's hereditary castle in Transylvania. "It's pronounced EYE-gore," Fitzgerald notes. "I should have dark bags under my eyes to make the character more sinister. That will happen soon. I'm here with my 3-week-old baby -- not getting much sleep."

Shuler Hensley plays the monster. He has already performed a number of unsettling Broadway roles: the unsavory Judd in "Oklahoma!", the creepy phantom in "Phantom of the Opera" and the maniacal Javert in "Les Miserables." "He's amazing with physical acting, especially with his eyes," says Stroman. "Remember, the monster can't talk until the very end -- his feelings have to be expressed without words. Shuler has a beautiful operatic bass baritone voice, though. We get to hear that at the end, in the song 'Deep Love.' "

Andrea Martin plays Frau Blucher, the dour and mysterious housekeeper at Frankenstein Castle. "Andrea has those wonderful Second City comedy chops," Stroman says. "She really understands the Mel Brooks world." She also understands the "Sesame Street" world. She does voices for the series' "Elmo's World" segments. In addition to diverse sketch comedy and stage work, Martin wrote and performed "Nude, Nude, Totally Nude." "The title means that there I was, alone on stage," she says, "no wigs, nobody else's words, just me being myself, doing a personal performance."

Fred Applegate plays Inspector Kemp and the Blind Hermit. Applegate is a journeyman performer with lots of Broadway, regional theater and TV credits. "An interesting thing about Kemp," he notes, "is that he has a wooden left leg and a wooden right arm and a patch over one eye. The Hermit is totally blind. He gives the monster lots of opportunities to react, like when he spills hot soup on his lap, or when he sets the monster's hand on fire."

-- Joe Adcock

FROM SEATTLE TO BROADWAY

After it closes at the Paramount Theatre here, the "Young Frankenstein" production will be loaded onto two-dozen trucks and carted off to New York where the show begins previews in October at the Hilton Theatre.

Seattle has a certain cachet as a shakedown site for Broadway-bound productions. The most eminent of these is "Hairspray," which premiered at the 5th Avenue Musical Theatre.

Two other musicals, one successful, one not, also were born at the 5th Avenue. They are, respectively, "The Wedding Singer" and "Princesses."

A new show, "Lone Star Love," gets on its feet at the 5th Avenue later this summer before moving on to Broadway.

"Hairspray" is based on a John Waters film. At some time in the indefinite future, the 5th Avenue expects to host the prior-to-New York premiere of another show based on a Waters film, "Cry-Baby."

"The Light in the Piazza" was originally an Intiman Theatre production.

"Smokey Joe's Cafe" was originally an Empty Space Theatre production.

Several Broadway non-musicals -- notably plays by Wendy Wasserstein, Herb Gardner and Bill Irwin -- got their start at the Seattle Repertory Theatre during Daniel Sullivan's tenure there as artistic director.

-- Joe Adcock