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The Naked Critic
Broadway Across America's YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN
By buzzbell27 May 2010
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Puts a Smile on Your Face and Will Make You Laugh Your Butt Off
Mel Brooks is a comic genius.
No one would dare argue otherwise.
Mel Brooks is the King of the Tasteless Sex Joke, the Uncle of the Never-failing Silly Schtick, and the Jack of the Always Tacky Takeoff.
Brooks' send-ups have kept us laughing for over half a century and never fail to take us to a higher (or lower) place of pure escapist comedy.
The Entire Company
Photo by Paul Kolnick
Broadway Across America's Young Frankenstein, which buzzed into town on Tuesday night, May 25, for two weeks in Sarofim Hall at the Hobby Center, will put a permanent smile on your face and you will laugh your silly butt off for over two and a half hours.
For those two and a half glorious hours, I totally forgot about BP and its incompetence in killing an entire ecosystem (Transylvanian companies seemmuch more green-conscious by comparison), the fall of western civilization in the form of corrupt politics and corporate greed and power (everything always seems rather merry in Transylvania) , Sarah Palin and her idiocy (The Monster has a much higher IQ), pedophiling priests (I could spot none in Transylvania), and TeaBagging textbook rewriters in the redneck state of Texas (no one is rewriting anything in Transylvania except new definitions of funny).
Wait a minute!
I can't say that about Texas!
I am a native Texan!
Mel Brooks would say, "Go for it, Buzz! Take a pot shot at it everyone and everything.! Be silly! Have fun!
Laugh at it all!"
And so....
Mel Brooks'(Thomas Meehan co-writes the book) Young Frankenstein is zany, crazy, silly, naughty, bawdy, pure vaudeville and burlesque at its best and, indeed, takes pot shots at everything and everyone.
Brooks' second musical never claims to be anything but pure entertainment and amusement for our viewing pleasure and, in the words of one of our former Presidents, "Mission accomplished!"
Every nutty song seems to be a camp version of a song from something else.
Fiddler on the Roof is represented well in the send-up "Join The Family Business" when Victor Frankenstein (Eric R. Walch is fabulous here) comes back from the dead in a dream with his ancestors to convince the young Frederick to continue their work of bringing back the dead. There is hilarious Russian dancing and even a fiddler, who turns out to be Frau Blucher (neigh, neigh!).
"A Roll in the Hay,"one of Brooks' silliest, most sexually scintillating songs in Young Frankenstein when the young Frederick is introduced to his assistant, Inga, is a send-up right out of the musical Flying Colors from 1932 when it featured a song called "Louisiana Hayride," which was later camplily captured in the 1953 film The Band Wagon, sung by Nanette Fabray.
Or Frau Blucher's (neigh, neigh!) "He Vas My Boyfriend" which could be from Cabaret with it's Bob Fosse bentwood chair choreography.
Or "Please Send Me Someone" which is prayed to God by the hermit like a prayer sung from Les Miserables until he gets on his knees like Al Jolson in "Swanee."
Brooks never lets up.
Nor does anyone is this Frankestonian festive tribute to vaudeville.
And the performers? All pure genius just like the master himself who creates the comedy for them to so hilariously perform.
Anne Horak as Inga
Roger Bart as Frederick Frankenstein
Photo by Paul Kolnick
Leading the fearless fray is the great Roger Bart, who created the role of Frederick Frankenstein on Broadway and whose amazing talent is begin touted to the hungry masses beyond the Hudson Valley.
I've only witnessed Bart's talent in film and television.
His home is on the stage and you cannot afford to miss witnessing this master clown at work on the Sarofim Hall stage gifting us with his multi-faceted, multi-dimensional comic brilliance here in redneck Houston town (well, we do have a lesbian Mayor!).
This opportunity to see Bart live and in action may never come this way again!
Bart must use twenty variations of his voice as Frederick Frankenstein and is never without a double take, a gasp, a guffaw, a schtick, or a funny song---all, of course, exquisitely timed and tempered.
Mel Brooks is a comic genius.
No one would dare argue otherwise.
Mel Brooks is the King of the Tasteless Sex Joke, the Uncle of the Never-failing Silly Schtick, and the Jack of the Always Tacky Takeoff.
Brooks' send-ups have kept us laughing for over half a century and never fail to take us to a higher (or lower) place of pure escapist comedy.
The Entire Company
Photo by Paul Kolnick
Broadway Across America's Young Frankenstein, which buzzed into town on Tuesday night, May 25, for two weeks in Sarofim Hall at the Hobby Center, will put a permanent smile on your face and you will laugh your silly butt off for over two and a half hours.
For those two and a half glorious hours, I totally forgot about BP and its incompetence in killing an entire ecosystem (Transylvanian companies seemmuch more green-conscious by comparison), the fall of western civilization in the form of corrupt politics and corporate greed and power (everything always seems rather merry in Transylvania) , Sarah Palin and her idiocy (The Monster has a much higher IQ), pedophiling priests (I could spot none in Transylvania), and TeaBagging textbook rewriters in the redneck state of Texas (no one is rewriting anything in Transylvania except new definitions of funny).
Wait a minute!
I can't say that about Texas!
I am a native Texan!
Mel Brooks would say, "Go for it, Buzz! Take a pot shot at it everyone and everything.! Be silly! Have fun!
Laugh at it all!"
And so....
Mel Brooks'(Thomas Meehan co-writes the book) Young Frankenstein is zany, crazy, silly, naughty, bawdy, pure vaudeville and burlesque at its best and, indeed, takes pot shots at everything and everyone.
Brooks' second musical never claims to be anything but pure entertainment and amusement for our viewing pleasure and, in the words of one of our former Presidents, "Mission accomplished!"
Every nutty song seems to be a camp version of a song from something else.
Fiddler on the Roof is represented well in the send-up "Join The Family Business" when Victor Frankenstein (Eric R. Walch is fabulous here) comes back from the dead in a dream with his ancestors to convince the young Frederick to continue their work of bringing back the dead. There is hilarious Russian dancing and even a fiddler, who turns out to be Frau Blucher (neigh, neigh!).
"A Roll in the Hay,"one of Brooks' silliest, most sexually scintillating songs in Young Frankenstein when the young Frederick is introduced to his assistant, Inga, is a send-up right out of the musical Flying Colors from 1932 when it featured a song called "Louisiana Hayride," which was later camplily captured in the 1953 film The Band Wagon, sung by Nanette Fabray.
Or Frau Blucher's (neigh, neigh!) "He Vas My Boyfriend" which could be from Cabaret with it's Bob Fosse bentwood chair choreography.
Or "Please Send Me Someone" which is prayed to God by the hermit like a prayer sung from Les Miserables until he gets on his knees like Al Jolson in "Swanee."
Brooks never lets up.
Nor does anyone is this Frankestonian festive tribute to vaudeville.
And the performers? All pure genius just like the master himself who creates the comedy for them to so hilariously perform.
Anne Horak as Inga
Roger Bart as Frederick Frankenstein
Photo by Paul Kolnick
Leading the fearless fray is the great Roger Bart, who created the role of Frederick Frankenstein on Broadway and whose amazing talent is begin touted to the hungry masses beyond the Hudson Valley.
I've only witnessed Bart's talent in film and television.
His home is on the stage and you cannot afford to miss witnessing this master clown at work on the Sarofim Hall stage gifting us with his multi-faceted, multi-dimensional comic brilliance here in redneck Houston town (well, we do have a lesbian Mayor!).
This opportunity to see Bart live and in action may never come this way again!
Bart must use twenty variations of his voice as Frederick Frankenstein and is never without a double take, a gasp, a guffaw, a schtick, or a funny song---all, of course, exquisitely timed and tempered.
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