Review: The Producers

SPRING IS COMING FOR HITLER

Friends of MEL Brooks will remember this prolific director-actor-writer-composer from his films.
Helsinki City Theatre’s mega-musical The Producers, Spring Is Coming to Hitler this autumn will certainly not leave anyone in the theatre who likes the humour of this merciless comedy writer cold.
The play has the DNA of Chaplin’s The Dictator and the heritage of the musical Cabaret, but Brooks parodies parody, tasty meringue tarts on top of tarts so that the pile doesn’t even wobble.

INSTRUCTOR Neil Hardwick has made many apt actor choices. One of these is Esko Roine, who plays the role of Max Bialystock, the producer of the earthworm, who carries many scenes singing, dancing and acting as charmingly as possible in a comedy.
Santeri Kinnunen’s gay director Roger de Bris and his assistant Carmen Ghia Lari Halme also laugh wonderfully sweetly, even if you think that sexual minority humour has already exhausted the fat in its comedy jar.
For those who like Risto Kaskilahti’s style, there are now genuine German leather trousers, the author of the great musical Franz Liebkind.
Anna-Maija Tuokko, who plays the basic Swedish blonde Ulla, is a knockout drop that warms up male viewers, and is likely to be to the taste of female beauty lovers who worship Marilyn beauty.

TEXT CREATES more and more surreal images on stage. sometimes pink grannies dance with their roles, sometimes hilarious theatre gays take over a house decorated with white flowers with the Village People.
At other times, SS soldiers dance to a Broadway musical, and even prison gets away with a shorter sentence thanks to the joyful theater.
Brooks’ world is completely unrestrained, and Hardwick and his entire ensemble have captured the joy of this overly hilarious blasphemy. The ideology of vanity, freedom and ideology radiating from it puts even the darkest cynic in a good mood.

HELSINKI City Theatre’s musical novelty is not a superfluous lemonade spectacle. Its hilarious stream of messages gathers into a river of criticism directed at criticism of the entire entertainment industry. But this sinful stream is not only black and oxygen-free, but a drink of joy and bubbling mead, and that’s why it’s so impressive.
In Helsinki, you can see superficial stage art, the deep currents of which open up to those who have the gift of laughter.