Whidbey Playhouse 'The Producers' aims for smash hit

“The Producers,” opened February 9 at Oak Harbor’s Whidbey Playhouse, offers community theatre at its finest: a well known and loved script, a musical, strong performances and direction, lavish costumes and good production values. If you liked Mel Brooks’ 1968 film, you will enjoy an evening of laughter here. Warning: this is 1968 Jewish male humor, fit for vaudeville and history. This faithful adaption of the film may offend some sensibilities.

The leads, Karl Borja as Max Bialystock and Fernando Duran as Leo Bloom, pay homage to Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder by channeling their performances. Emily Hoyt has a wonderful Swedish accent and platinum blonde hair as Ulla, the receptionist and sex object. Again, the script is not politically correct.

The Playhouse blew their budget on costumes: from Bloom’s suit to Ulla’s dress and gown, to the Rockette-like Usherettes to the old ladies’ matching blue dresses and wigs like miniature lambs. Genny Cohn is the costume designer. Their ensemble dance scene, eight elderly women dipping and raising their walkers as they go around in a circle, is hilarious. Choreographers Claudia Losada and Daunne Bacon Zinger‘s work is superb. The ensemble Nazis tap dancing scene ought to be a show stopper.

Brooks wrote the music, lyrics and script, the last adapted with Thomas Meehan. As Jason Fraley rightly notes, it is “‘one of the most genius movie premises in all of 20th century entertainment.” Or, as Bialystock reflects near the end to Bloom: “I picked the wrong play, the wrong director, the wrong cast. Where did I go right?” This entire production goes right.

Very briefly, the plot: Has-been Broadway producer finds in Bloom’s straight laced, timid accountant an idea for a monumental scam: raise funds for a sure-fire failure that will close after opening night. The two producers take most of the two million dollars raised and go to Rio.

How could “Springtime for Hitler” be a smash hit? Great songs, great costumes, great set, great acting, great direction.

Sit back and enjoy the 21 songs, the slapstick comedy, the caricatures of old ladies and everyone’s dancing. Directors Andrew Huggins (also musical director) and Susan Riney have produced a winner. The cast is uniformly strong.

“The Producers” won 12 Tony awards for its 2001 Broadway production. Brooks won an Oscar in 1968 for Best Original Screenplay – over Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

“The Producers” plays February 9 through March 4. Performances are Thursday-Saturday, 7:30 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. Sundays.

For tickets: 360-679-2237 or [email protected]