Review: The Producers

HEY, YOU KNOW WHO!

This autumn, the Masters will shake hands on the big stage of the Helsinki City Theatre. The collaboration between Mel Brooks and Neil Hardwick is a landmark case, as Brooks knows how to convey it to the northern Yankee people.
Together with musical expert, conductor Nick Davies and choreographer Markku Nenonen , they bring to the stage a farce that laughs at Hitler and gays, the people of Tampere and themselves, which avoids sideways and succeeds in its difficult endeavor.
The Nazis have never been so cheerful.

AT THE PRODUCERS , the rogue duo tries to get rich by producing the most vulgar musical in the universe, “Spring Is Dawning for Hitler“, on the fabled New York Broadway. The result is Helsinki’s toughest show this autumn, if the cast can keep up with the same pulse as at the premiere. The tempo dropped only a few times, which was reflected in unnecessary breaks.
Thomas Meehan, who translated the original film for the theater stage with Brooks, has cleaned up some of the meanest jokes in the script, presumably with the intention of making The Producers more digestible. Of course it is, but there is no way out of the slanders typical of Brooks. There is no skimping in this musical.

HARDWICK HAS demanded from his team the physics on which so many of Brooks’ psychoanalytic-double standards are based. The actors do an excellent job of the challenge, including Anna-Maija Tuokko’s Ulla and Risto Kaskilahti’s Liebkind’s disturbing breech dance.
The absolute gem of the performance is Lari Halme’s delicate Carmen. As the assistant-lover of the great stage director Roger De Bris (Santeri Kinnunen), Halme’s performance is based on moving from A to B like a ballet dancer. The premiere audience was about to be torn apart.
The best thing about The Producers is the big dance and singing numbers, such as the accounting firm’s transformation into a stage for gogo girls or the walker attack of lustful grannies. The tap numbers danced to excellent entertainment music are reminiscent of the brilliance of Astaire and Kelly.