Young Frankenstein

CREATURES OF HABIT Hensley and Bart reprise their Broadway roles.

Photo: Paul Kolnick

One of the funniest bits in Brooks’s classic 1974 horror spoof involves a blind hermit, played by Gene Hackman, who welcomes Frankenstein’s creation into his hovel, only to torment the monster inadvertently with hot soup and a badly lit cigar. In this 2007 musical adaptation, now touring after a lackluster Broadway run, the scene, like virtually every memorable moment from the movie, eventually turns up. But the chuckles elicited by the bearded hermit’s (Brad Oscar) appearance dry up as he launches into a song about being lonely. And the reprise about being lonely. Could we get to the soup already?

That, in a nutshell, is the trouble with Young Frankenstein. The movie’s all there, but copiously padded with new tit jokes and arduously drawn out with big production numbers. Bart as Frankenstein and Hensley as the monster tap dance to “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” And then the monster has a shadow partner. And then the whole company tap dances in big monster shoes. And then: strobe lights!

The cast is mostly quite sharp; Glushak creates an indelible Frau Blucher, all angularity and repressed yearning. Bart, though, seems hampered by his discovery that Gene Wilder used to SCREAM FOR EMPHASIS. The show, if almost never markedly bad, often hums along on autopilot, closer in spirit to Dracula: Dead and Loving It than Brooks’s earlier effort. While the new lyrics offer some clever wordplay, the tunes sound dredged up from a lifetime of watching B-musicals. They’re like a window into Brooks’s inner soundtrack, the poor man.

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