A Saturday in Transylvania (Update Added)

Sometimes I think I’m so clever I outsmart myself. For months we’ve had our tickets for the new Broadway production of Mel Brook’s Young Frankenstein. My friends from Queasy, Mass. drove down specifically to see this show Saturday night. Feeling puckish (I guess) I thought it might be cool to also attend the matinee of the current off-Broadway production of Frankenstein, The Musical; a fully mounted take on the original book by Mary Shelley. I had visions of being able to say, oh, yeah, we had a perfectly MONSTROUS Saturday. So I bought tickets. Puckishly.

I have to admit this was a mistake. Frankenstein, The Musical takes itself so seriously it gives the word “turgid” new meaning. We all know the story: scientist abandons true love to create human life (presumably after having some success with a bird or two), he makes himself a big ol’ monster; the monster doesn’t much like himself or humans in general and badly misbehaves; everybody dies. This production is so misguided it’s hard to explain. Heavy, serious, musical drama about the making of a monster is obviously impossible. Or, at least, in the hands of the creators (cackle) of this particular monster.

However, you’ve got to hand it to this professional cast, they give it their all and the impression is that they believe in the material they are presenting. I don’t know what else they could do, really, besides fall to the floor ruefully laughing hysterically. The show is technically a marvel, which could be one of the problems since the technology overcomes common sense; just like getting the idea you can create life with it (cloning be damned). One of my personal problems was the miscasting of Hunter Foster as Victor Frankenstein, the dude with the deadly dream. Mr. Foster, let’s face it, is a hobbit in stature and demeanor and tends to scamper when the role requires manly strides. His voice is rock-nasal and cannot overcome the demands of the classically-based composition of the score. The man-of-the-hour, however, the creature himself, portrayed by Steve Blanchard (who sings well enough) but, maybe I shouldn’t admit this, his magnificent pectorals, nicely nippled, were horribly distracting. Hairless, glistening, perfect…and, I might add, usually heaving. It makes one wonder where Professor Frankenstein found those particular, and highly attractive, body parts. Surely, even in 1782, they could have cobbled together a comfy 9X shirt for him to wear.

Luckily we saw the two shows in the right order. If we had seen Young Frankenstein first there would have been no way to sit through Frankenstein, The Musical without staggering hysterically up the aisle in mid-tune.

A few seasons back Mr. Brook’s The Producers was a wonderful surprise and got us all on Susan Stroman’s bandwagon for her direction and choreography. She does a similar job in Young Frank except, I think, has the problem of having to top herself. She almost (almost) pulls it off and the evening is full of wonderful stuff, including some dazzling musical numbers (as expected). This makes it easy to recommend, even to the people who never saw or, if they did, are not fans of the movie on which it is based. With the exception of the “Puttin’ on the Ritz” number the movie is not a musical but, nonetheless, it is reproduced faithfully herein and then Stroman takes it into Broadway heaven with a stage full of…well, you’ll see.

The cast of Young Frank is uniformly excellent, with middle-star power whose wattage can be easily matched by the many replacements to come over the next ten years. Maybe Mr. Brooks realized his mistake with The Producers; that is, casting Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick in the leads and then, when these stars left to pursue other aspects of their careers, box office receipts hit the skids.

One thing of interest I had never paid attention to before: The Frankenstein story, in the original book and off-Broadway, takes place in the Bavarian Alps. Somehow or other, even though there seems to be quite a lot of Alp-ish rustics yodeling their lungs out, Mr. Brook’s has placed his story in Transylvania (the movie too). Someone must have pointed out this discrepancy to him so he has Dracula show up to make an offer on the castle in a tiny two-line throwaway scene during the finale. Well, it makes as much sense as the rest of the show. Young Frankenstein is a wonderful mess and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Old Frankenstein, off-Broadway, I can say bye-bye to without regrets except for my innate sorrow when people give a huge creative effort and then have to succumb to unemployment.

Overall, the day was a success…it included a couple of good meals strategically scheduled. Theatrically, even though the appetizer was less than adequate, the main course satisfied the senses. In the future I will attempt to be less puckish.
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Update: Young Frankenstein opened last night, 11/8/07, and Ben Brantley from the New York Times, with a few (very few) compliments essentially dumped all over it. Jeez, what a hard-ass; can't he just sit back and enjoy the silliness and the spectacle? I know sometimes I'm overly critical myself but at least I think I can usually recognize what the creators are aspiring to. To me, Young Frankenstein achieved that.