Mel Brooks followed up his incredibly successful Broadway adaptation of his film The Producers with a musical adaptation of what he considers his finest film, Young Frankenstein. Not nearly as successful with audiences or critics as The Producers, it’s still a solid show for fans of the film and others looking for light amusement. Sonoma Arts Live has a production running on the Rotary Stage at the Sonoma Community Center through September 22.
The plot basics remain the same. Young Frederick Frankenstein (Michaee Bauer) returns to his ancestral castle to find Ygor (Pat Barr) and buxom lab assistant Inga (Emma Sutherland), ready to assist in continuing his father’s experiments. Frau Blucher (Kim Williams) (cue horse whinny) also wants him to proceed. Soon, the monster (Todd Krish) runs amok and kidnaps Frederick’s fiancé, Elizabeth (Joanna Lynn Bert). It’s up to Inspector Kemp (Bruce Vieira) and the villagers to rid their community of the Frankenstein curse.
Doing a large-scale Broadway musical on a community theatre budget and on a small community theatre stage can create numerous challenges. Director Larry Williams used lighting (by Frank Sarubbi) and projections (by Chris Schloemp) to give a sense of the real scale of the show, with mixed results. Scene changes led to the lush theatre curtain being drawn as many times as I can remember the curtain ever being drawn at a SAL show with musical tracks filling the change time. The cast scurried to make these changes quickly, but the show’s momentum occasionally slowed.
Newcomers to SAL Bauer and Bert acquit themselves well in their roles and possess fine singing voices. Barr’s Ygor was very representative of Marty Feldman’s (minus the googly eyes), and it worked, as did Williams’ Blucher and Vieira’s Inspector Kemp. Sutherland makes for a bouncy Inga, and Krish does a good job channeling Peter Boyle’s original take on the monster, albeit with a fuller head of hair. The ensemble (and choreographer Liz Andrews) got to shine in the larger musical numbers like “Join the Family Business” and “Puttin’ on the Ritz.”
But some of the film’s funniest scenes failed to ignite on the small SAL stage. The “Put the candle back!” and blind hermit scenes just didn’t work. The bookshelf was clearly being manipulated by Bauer and Sutherland, while the hermit scene cried out for something other than a young man in a fake beard (Kevin Allen) and invisible hot soup. It’s as if the production was relying on audiences’ memories of the scenes rather than the execution of the scenes themselves to generate laughs.
The vocal work (under the musical direction of Justin Pyne) was fine, but I missed the presence of live music. The orchestral needs for this score were no doubt beyond this company’s means, let alone space. The music is all typical Mel Brooks material. Some songs work (“He Vas My Boyfriend”), others don’t (“Transylvania Mania”) despite the energetic dancing.
There’s also loads of crude and crass Brooks humor, so while it may go over their heads, it’s not a show for younger kids.
I’ve loved the original film since seeing it with my parents in 1974 (they also let me see Blazing Saddles earlier that year, but that’s a whole other story). I’ve seen a number of local theatrical productions, but my fondness for the material and appreciation of companies willing to take on the challenge of mounting it remain.
Who wouldn’t like a show that takes a garage dish heater, adorns it with Christmas lights, and calls it a brain transference machine?
Sonoma Arts Live presents ‘Young Frankenstein’ through September 22 on the Rotary Stage at Andrews Hall in the Sonoma Community Center, 276 E. Napa St., Sonoma. Thurs – Sat, 7:30 pm; Sun, 2 pm. $25 -$42. 707-484-4874. sonomaartslive.org.
