Philadelphia Weekly

The Walnut Street Theatre concludes their 200th anniversary season with an entertaining production of Mel Brooks’ Tony Award-winning The Producers.

The musical offspring of one Brooks’ great film comedies, the show is undeniably ridiculous. However it’s an inspired silliness and The Producers is as clever as it is amusing.

The plot is brilliantly simple. A washed-up theater producer Max Bialystock (Ben Lipitz) and his wimpy accountant Leo Bloom (Ben Dibble) discover a way to make a fortune by producing a sure-fire Broadway flop.

The scheme is simple enough. First the intrepid (and slightly dishonest) pair must find the world’s worst play, which they discover in the form of a love-letter to the Nazis titled “Springtime for Hitler.” Then after securing an amazingly inept director they turn their attention to wooing potential investors. Luckily Bialystock is intimately acquainted with a number of rich elderly women who find him irristible. A few sex games later (including one spirited round of “the virgin milkmaid and the well-hung stable boy”) the backing is secured, and they’re ready to open (and hopefully immediately close) on Broadway.

Along the way Brooks manages to insult everyone: gays, Jews, blacks, women—no group is spared. Because he offends all groups equally, the humor never seems mean-spirited. And while Brooks’ brand of comedy is often crude (penis jokes are especially popular), the show is also undeniably warm and compassionate.

Similar to past productions of The Producers director Marc Robin’s staging rises and falls on the strength of its cast.

Lipitz’s Bialystock is a master of a chicanery, a roguish fellow with a banker’s greed and a con man’s smile. He’s a larger than life character and the role demands a Herculean-size performance, which Lipitz delivers in one of the year’s more engaging portrayals.

Dibble is equally fine as the nebbish accountant who trades in his pencil for the bright lights of 42nd Street. Showing off his impressive voice to great effect, Dibble’s Bloom is naïve, neurotic and utterly adorable.
Unfortunately the Walnut’s glitzy production is marred by several performers who are miscast in supporting roles.

The show demands over-the-top acting, but Jeremy Webb’s hammy performance as the outrageously gay director Roger DeBris is more annoying than amusing. Far less irritating but no less miscast is Jeffrey Coon. An all-American type with boyish looks and a big voice, Coon is out of his element as the psychotic Nazi playwright Franz Liebkind.

The Producers, though, is basically a buddy musical and Robin wisely puts the focus on Lipitz and Dibble. Singing, dancing, and wise-cracking their way through the nearly three hour production, their enthusiasm is infectious. The two are at their best on the gigantic production numbers, all of which are smartly choreographed by Robin and well-executed by a small army of dancers. The Producers’ musical score is average at best, but Brooks’ wit and the performances of Lipitz and Dibble eventually prove impossible to resist.

FOOTLIGHTS

If you are in search of something unique check out the world premiere of The Rock Tenor. Conceived by vocalist Rob Evan (lead singer for The Trans-Siberian Orchestra) and director Vincent Marini (who revitalized South Jersey theater when he served as the artistic director at the Lenape Regional Performing Arts Center), Tenor marries a diverse range of musical styles in a show that is part concert, part theater. 

The song list sounds like it was conceived by an audiophile with multiple personalities. The opening number includes Yes’ “I’ve Seen all Good People: Your Move/All Good” which segues into a combo of Styx’s “Come Sail Away,” Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” and the “Theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey.” 

The rest of the song list is equally diverse, with contributions from such unlikely artists as Stephen Sondheim, Queen, Handel, the Beatles, Andrew Lloyd Webber and mainstream rock outfit Daughtry.  We can’t promise Tenor will be sensational, but Marini is one of the area’s savviest directors who is enormously adept at mounting large productions that keep audiences thoroughly entertained. (J.C.R.)