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'Producers' a letdown a year later
Saturday, June 1, 2002
NEW YORK -- After a record haul of 12 Tony Awards for "The Producers" last year, the new monarch of midtown -- King Mel (Brooks) -- was asked if a London run would require the talents of Broadway stars Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick.
Flush with victory, Brooks told reporters, "You may not need them. There's Alan Cumming and Alfred Molina and a whole lot of people who can dance and sing." (And, he might have added, those are just the "A"s.)
Oh, what a difference a year makes.
Since the departure of Lane and Broderick from "The Producers" in March, the show's producers -- who also gave Broadway the $480 "Inner Circle" single ticket price not long after Sept. 11 -- have fired one replacement (British actor Henry Goodman) and hired a former understudy (Brad Oscar) to play schlockmeister Max Bialystock. With sitcom star Steven Weber ("Wings," "Cursed") in the role of nerdy Leo Bloom, the production still amuses -- but the manic theatrical free fall of the original is gone.
New York critics have mostly closed their eyes to the letdown. A critical version, you might say, of the emperor's new clothes. The New York Observer's John Heilpern, however, got it just right when he wrote, "My fellow critics have all rolled over wagging their tails to declare 'The Producers' as good as ever. If only it were."
But as costs continue to rise and large corporations continue to dominate Broadway producing, franchise is everything. It has become an American article of faith to think that we can endlessly reproduce any commodity. Theater, though, doesn't always cooperate. Its eternal (and ephemeral) essence? You had to be there.
-- Jeffrey Eric Jenkins
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