'The Producers' delivers once again

Play stays true to its roots in comedy, brings down the house in Fresno run

By Rebekah Herbert

The Mel Brooks-produced musical “The Producers” opened Tuesday night at the Saroyan Theatre—and it’s every bit as good as its 12 Tony Awards say it is.

“I love it,” Sue Garcia said. “I say it is an eight on a scale from one to 10.”

The story, based on Brooks’ Academy Award-winning 1968 film, was just as simple and hilarious when it opened on Broadway in 2001.

In 2001, the musical received the most Tony Awards in Broadway history. Some of the Tony Awards include best musical, best book of a musical, best original score and best costume design.

The show is full of side-splitting humor and nonstop pleasure.

The orchestra does an amazing job with the music, adding flavor and fun sound effects to the charisma of the show.

Every song has its own flare and unique style, never leaving the audience bored.

The musical includes spectacles such as “Little Old Ladyland,” in which elderly widows swing on swings, dance on benches and strut creatively in an ensemble with their walkers.

A finale with neon lights acting as a sunset leads the two stars in a touching moment that leaves the audience smiling through the curtain call.

Though the show at the Saroyan Theatre doesn’t have the original Broadway cast of Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, it doesn’t need them.

The show speaks for itself through the character roles and only requires good acting, not huge stars.

Bob Amaral plays the role of Max Bialystock, a down-on-his-luck Broadway producer. And Andy Taylor plays a skittish, hysterical and nervous accountant, Leo Bloom, who figures an over-invested Broadway flop can earn them a fortune.

Max goes right to work seducing his little old lady investors to find and produce the worst Broadway show ever. Leo, who holds a secret desire to be a producer, joins the scheme alongside Max.

Together they find a neo-Nazi script written by an idiot playwright who converses with his pet pigeons, and a bad director who lives with his over-feminine “common law assistant.”

The director puts together “Springtime for Hitler” and plays the role of Hitler himself.

The jokes are wickedly funny with emphasis on everything politically incorrect. One joke after another leaves the audience grinning and laughing through the entire two-and-a-half-hour show.

The show makes fun of every sexual orientation, race and political affiliation, but all in good humor that is not taken offensively.

The central musical number involves showgirls dressed as military troops, a “tap challenge” between Hitler and other world leaders, such as Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and some very funny lyrics such as “Springtime for Hitler and Germany/ Winter for Poland and France.”

“I thought it was just hysterical,” Jessica Lopez said. “It was really funny; I loved the humor.”

Amaral couldn’t have done a better performance of Bialystock.

“Both my wife and director and choreographer Susan Stroman agreed I was born for this part,” Amaral said.

Amaral came to play Bialystock after playing Pumbaa in the national tour of “The Lion King,” and has been seen on Broadway in “A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum” as Lycus and Pseudolus.

“I rate this as my favorite show I have been in so far,” Amaral said. “It is a character actor’s dream role.”

Amaral loves the comedy of the show.

“The best thing about this show is it is so damned funny,” Amaral said. “It is hysterical. Mel writes on so many different levels. On the surface it is funny, as well as on another level.

“In the audience people are bending over in pain because they are laughing so hard. It is so cool.”

Amaral loves his job and loves to hear the audience laugh and clap. It is the most rewarding part of what he does, he said.

“I am a fan of comedy,” Amaral said. “I remember when I was 8 years old and watching Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin on TV and I knew that some day I wanted to do that. And being able to work with Mel Brooks is amazing. He is a comedy god.”

Amaral and Taylor have the ability to make the audience members roll out of their seats in laughter.

Together they follow the theme of the show well: “If youa got it, flaunt it.”