Review: The Producers

HELLO! THERE IS PLENTY OF OUTRAGEOUS STUFF FOR EVERYONE

The City Theatre’s The Producers is a raunchy and glorious musical hit

The Auditorium rubs its eyes. The soldiers marching in swastika formations are multiplied in the mirror on the back wall. An orchestra plays an intoxicating march, and a parachute battalion floats from the sky.
In the middle of it all, accompanied by the Heil shouts of the army in the tap, a man jumps onto the stage, himself
Hitler. Such a Wagnerian scene with its Valkyries and golden-winged eagles has hardly ever been seen on the big stage of the City Theatre.
Dazzling, handsome and brilliantly tuned together. Like the whole evening. Are we really in Finland? Both dancers and actors can sing and vice versa.

Neil Hardwick has received
The musical The Producers stirred up and welded a huge group of creators into one inspired and radiant stage family. The ensemble excels both in individual performances and in the visualisation of the performance, music, lights or movement language.
Success is guaranteed. So why?


Sometimes the paths of stories go in circles, such as
Mel Brooks’ evergreen and popular
Spring is coming for Hitler , i.e.
The Producers musical.
It was born as a film about Cold War America. Then the film was produced into a big-money hit musical for Broadway in 2001. After a few years, the musical rolled back into a movie again.
What makes the story so popular?
Is it so funny to laugh at Hitler, and when the jokes on top of that have been invented by the Jew Brooks? Perhaps half a century ago it was not so worn out to laugh at the Führer.
So, we laugh at the rich and patron grannies who want sex games in exchange for their money.


Viewers are fascinated by the bimbo blonde Ulla’s catapult into stardom, which is not shown from a very feminist perspective. Homophobes get to applaud the clichés that swell out of the story.
In Hollywood or Broadway, you can imagine Brooks’ feisty way of using insider comedy, which strikes directly at the dictatorship of the producers. Parodies are made of everyone, everything, and especially the birth stories of musicals.
Fun
The Producers proves in itself the truth of its claim about how the audience can be incited to anything. That is the worst, most vulgar, clumsy and stupid story possible.
The musical laughs not only at them, but also at us – and above all, at itself.
The salt of tastelessness is delicious roles, starting from
Esko Roine’s role as star producer Max Bialystock with an unbelievably breathtaking tempo and flexibility.
Antti Timonen’s cheating partner Leo Bloom will have to fight hard to stay in the same races.

Santeri Kinnunen Roger, the boss of a gay harem who jumps from a talentless director to an actor for the Führer, sings and interprets his antagonistic role in a lewd way, but also very edgy when necessary.


Sometimes the fun slips into an underline, such as
Lari Halme’s sweet Carmen or
Risto Kaskilahti’s crazy comedian-fascist Franz Liebkind. They act captivatingly, with great joy.
The director’s decision is left to ponder.
Is Liebkind just a harmless fool?


Tonight, a star was also born. Or hopefully not a star but a talent on the way to new challenges. In the role of the Swedish Ulla, Anna-Maija Tuokko is charismatically radiant, multi-talented and beautifully singing, much better than that of a world-class star
The movie Ulla, played by Uma Thurman .
The City Theatre’s interpretation is
Jyrki Seppä’s wonderful visual solutions and
Markku Nenonen’s choreography is subtly faithful
The Producers’ performance tradition. However, it has a lot more kick in every direction than, say, the last movie about the story!

Kristiina Drews and
Jukka Virtanen has translated the musical’s language games, jokes and rhymes into Finnish skilfully and wittily.
On the other hand, the Juntti Finnish farts, black sausage jokes, references to Hilja Maitotyttö etc.
The evening is abundant and spectacular. On the small Broadway of Töölönlahti, the atmosphere is a bit like on a real Broadway.