Steve On Broadway (SOB)

Did Critics Think Young Frankenstein Was Putzin' On The Shtick?

Did Critics Think Young Frankenstein Was Putzin' On The Shtick?

So much for being anything coming close to resembling a monster hit. Instead, critics smelled blood.

Earlier this evening, Mel Brooks' much anticipated Young Frankenstein opened to what can only be described as largely disappointing initial reviews. Every single one invariably compared this effort with the ecstatically-acclaimed The Producers, which took home 12 Tony Awards in 2001. The critics largely thought the songs to be unmemorable with Roger Bart and Megan Mullally taking their share of the hits, while Andrea Martin, Christopher Fitzgerald, Sutton Foster and Shuler Hensley earning what outright praise could be offered.

Proffering that Young Frankenstein is "not exactly the requisite delirium the best musical comedy can provide," the review by Michael Kuchwara of the Associated Press is a mixed bag: "The musical's intentions aren't as clear since song and dance get in the way of the parody, diluting the spoofing....Frustratingly, Bart never gets to burst out with a show stopper of his own. Martin, though, provides some sassy, salacious humor, hilariously channeling the sexual repression of the housekeeper Frau Blucher....Young Frankenstein should do wonders for the career of Christopher Fitzgerald, an athletic scamp of a guy who portrays Frankenstein's devoted, demented sidekick, Igor. Verbally and physically, the man can command the stage."

Saying that the show is funny "sometimes," Newsday's Linda Winer is also mixed tending toward negative: "The expert actors are never less than enjoyable as characters created, unforgettably, by the now-iconic movie cast. And Andrea Martin's Frau Blucher and Shuler Hensley's Monster are demonically adorable....But the sweat of competence drives too much of the vintage Brooks humor this time, and the staging by ace director-choreographer Susan Stroman seems more formula than invention."

Claiming that "lightning hasn't struck twice," when making his inevitable comparison with The Producers, David Rooney of Variety still ends up offering a middling to positive critique: "[A]show that could have been a blast ends up being just good enough....But it's a far more mechanical creation, with little of the heart or liberating belly laughs of its predecessor....Standouts are the indispensable Andrea Martin as sinister haushag Frau Blucher and Christopher Fitzgerald as hunchback Igor. Fitzgerald does the impossible by claiming a role forged by Marty Feldman as his own inexhaustibly vaudevillian comic creation."

Complaining that it left him "with a monster-size headache," The New York Times' Ben Brantley only laughed three times: "[M]oney can’t buy you flair. It can’t even buy you laughs....And if the headline stars, Mr. Bart (in the title role) and Megan Mullally (as his Park Avenue fiancée), don’t feel naturally wedded to their roles, the production does offer confirmation of the distinctive, very different talents of Sutton Foster, Shuler Hensley and Andrea Martin. The show takes many of the elements that made The Producers such a delight and then saps them of their joy by overselling them."

Accusing Brooks & Co. of having " just made Young Frankenstein its victim," USA Today's Robert Bianco offers two-and-a-half stars: "What worked on film works, for the most part, on stage. It's when the show gets inventive, expansive and, well, musical that it gets into trouble....too many songs are dull, too many seem randomly inserted, and almost all either send the story wandering off in pointless new directions or extend old bits that were funnier shorter. The songwriting skill Brooks showed in The Producers is absent here....Struggling to hold his own against the more colorful secondary characters, Bart sends his voice screeching up to a register that, when overamplified, threatens to scratch glass. Luckily, Foster, Fitzgerald and Martin compensate -- with Martin's hilariously varied response to those whinnying horses almost worth the price of admission on its own. Hensley makes 'Puttin' on the Ritz' the show-stopper it should be."

UPDATED (November 9, 2007 - 9:37 am EST)
"Although Young Frankenstein isn't the joyous celebration one hoped for," for Joe Dziemianowicz of New York's Daily News, he still musters a marginally positive review: "Make no mistake: The show is big and entertaining. But it never matches the delirious thrills of The Producers, whose creative team regrouped to make this monster musical based on Brooks' 1974 horror-film spoof....Many of Brooks' songs disappoint, though. They lack the snap and wit he's shown before and do nothing to move the story along....Roger Bart heads the terrific cast as the mad doctor, Frederick Frankenstein. He sings and dances with enormous ease and charisma and acts with the right neurotic edge. Christopher Fitzgerald makes a fitting and very funny Igor, his humpbacked helper."

Lamenting that "it is not the The Producers," New York Post's Clive Barnes still offers a solid three-star review: "Despite music that's more ho-hum than hummable, Brooks's lyrics are bright and witty. Better yet, the book -- maintaining virtually all of those iconic quotable quotes -- does a great job, with the assistance of co-writer Thomas Meehan, in transferring the original script to the stage. An even greater job is done by Stroman whose staging, choreography and supervising of special effects manage to suggest the Broadway musical at its dizziest, glitziest and funniest. In her entire career, Stroman has done nothing better - she even outproduces her work on The Producers."

However, blasting this as a "shrill, misbegotten, deeply cynical enterprise," Eric Grode of The New York Sun submits perhaps the deepest pan: "[W]ith the exception of about a dozen jokes (nearly all of which were pulled verbatim from the film) and an Act II showstopper, the final product has a shockingly lackadaisical, dashed-off quality that no amount of whiz-bang stagecraft can conceal....Sadly, however, the shrewd casting does not extend to its Doctor Frankenstein. Roger Bart (the lisping Carmen Ghia from The Producers) has been square-pegged into the straight-man role, one for which he is particularly ill suited. Rather than attempting to rein in the surrounding madcaps until the effort occasionally reduces him to hysterics, which would have recalled Gene Wilder in the film, Mr. Bart performs nearly every scene in an exasperated shriek that brings to mind an unmodulated Nathan Lane."

So there you have it, no rapturous (and mostly mixed at best) reviews and every single one makes comparisons with Brooks' greatest hit The Producers. Will this matter when Brooks & Co. supposedly have over $30 million in advance ticket sales? Probably not, but it sure could bring down the top ticket pricing in a hurry....yet Mel Brooks may still be laughing all the way to the bank.

This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).

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Labels: Andrea Martin, Broadway, Christopher Fitzgerald, Critics' Capsule, Film, Mel Brooks, Musical, Roger Bart, The Producers, Young Frankenstein

posted by Steve On Broadway (SOB) @ Thursday, November 08, 2007