Theatre At The Center’s The Producers

Theatre At The Center has certainly stepped it up a notch with their current staging of Mel Brook's mega-hit musical The Producers. Comprising a top notch cast led by the bombastic Norm Boucher as Max Bialystock and the affable Michael Mahler as Leo Bloom, this production is bursting with talent both on and off stage, including a fantastic sounding orchestra.

For those one or two people who don't know the plot, Max Bialystock, a sleazy Broadway producer, has not had a hit in years. His latest show has just opened and bombed. At the end of his rope, Bialystock meets Leo Bloom, a nerdish junior accountant. Together they conspire to con investors, produce a sure-fire flop, and make a fortune. The plan includes a Nazi musical called Springtime for Hitler; an outrageously effete director, Roger de Bris; and two million dollars, which Bialystock must raise by having sex with hundreds of preternaturally aroused little old ladies. The original 1968 film featured Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder while, the Tony Award winning musical starred Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, who in turn did a film of the musical.

As anyone ever connected with The Producers would tell you, it is a very difficult show to pull off successfully. The difficulty is two-fold. First finding actors that can bring their own take on the two leads rather than imitate Mostel, Lane, Wilder and/or Broderick and second, finding a director that has enough faith in the actors to let Bialystock and Bloom come into their own. I have witnessed this difficulty first hand with original cast of The Producers when I was fortunate enough to have been one of the few invited to the final dress rehearsal with director Susan Stroman and creator Mel Brooks. Throughout the rehearsal, Broderick was clearly having issues finding his own take on Leo Bloom but Stroman and Brooks let Mathew experiment with different ideas in each scene and ended up being quite transformed then that of Gene Wilder's. Mr. Brooks kept lamenting not to be a carbon copy of the film's original stars. Thus, keep with the creator's instructions, is only when the leads can make the character's their own that regional productions of The Producers can really shine.

That is the nagging issue with this current production. All too often, director William Pullinsi seems to take the easy way out and allows Boucher and Mahler to do exact replications of Lane and Broderick's performances from line delivery to body movements. Yes, the jokes will illicit requisite laughs from the audience, but that is because the lines are innately funny. Because the material is so good the actors should be given the opportunity to find their own take on the characters. And Pullinsi has two of Chicago's greatest talents in Boucher and Malher who clearly have the ability to pull off this task and make the production go from good to great. All one has to do is look to the Marriott's phenomenal production of The Producers last September with Ross Lehman and Guy Atkins under Marc Robin's direction which was Broadway worthy, to understand the gravity of letting actors find themselves.

Make no mistake; this is still a terrific production. Boucher and Malher have terrific chemistry together and they know how to rely on each other for timing. Boucher shines in his highly exhausting aria "Betrayed" and Mahler's "I Want To Be A Producer" shows off not only his clear tenor pipes but his hoofing abilities as well. The star turn comes in the form of Laura Taylor as Ulla, who, other than the original Katy Huffman, is the best Swede ever to sing the role.

Sean Fortunato is hysterical as Franz Liptkin, the playwright and the always great Jamie Baron doesn't disappoint has Roger DeBris.

Stacey Flaster's choreography, though mostly reproduced from Ms. Strohman's incarnation, works quite well as adapted for Theatre At The Center's thrust stage. Nick Mozak has created a fun environment for the actors to work in and musical director Bill Underwood has done a brilliant job with both the vocals and the orchestra.

If you have never seen the stage adaptation, you will surely get your belly laughs out of this production. If you are a repeat Producers attendee, though you will laugh at the right places, you will wish that a little more originality went into this hard working production.

The Producers runs through October 19, 2008 at Theatre At The Center, 1040 Ridge Rd., Munster, Indiana. For show times and ticket information please visit www.theatreatthecenter.com or call 219.836.3255.