Musical –
The Producers
Producer/Company –
The Production
Company
Venue –
State Theatre,
Victorian Arts Centre, Melbourne
Date and time –
Saturday, 14 July
2012, 7.30pm
Cast includes –
Wayne Scott
Kermond, Brent Hill, Christie Whelan, Trevor Ashley, Mitchell Butel and Rohan
Browne.
Crew –
Directed by Andrew
Hallsworth and Dean Bryant. Musically directed by Vanessa Scammell.
Choreographed by Andrew Hallsworth
This is The
Production Company’s fourteenth season presenting semi-staged musicals at the
Victorian Arts Centre. Each year, they mount three productions: a popular show,
a somewhat well-known show, and a lesser-known show. In 2012, they begin their
trilogy with ‘The Producers’, continuing in August with ‘Chess’, followed by
‘Promises, Promises’ in October.
‘The Producers’ is
a Mel Brooks musical based on his 1967 film of the same name. It swept the Tony
Awards in 2001 with a record twelve Tony Awards. The show played for six years
on Broadway, followed by successful seasons and tours in London, and an
Australian tour in 2004/2005. It also became a Hollywood film in 2005, with several
of the original Broadway cast returning to their original roles.
The show is a laugh-a-minute
romp in the style of the golden era of Broadway musicals. The plot of ‘The
Producers’ is paper-thin – two producers staging an awful show so that they can
decamp to Rio with the show’s capital – but it is full of heart and good
humour.
Wayne Scott
Kermond takes the lead as Max Bialystock, the ‘King of Broadway’. Kermond,
Australia’s answer to the legendary Donald O’Connor, is a consummate song and
dance man with a huge flair for stage buffoonery. He is paired with the
talented Brent Hill who, while perhaps not the very strongest vocally in the
role, brings great warmth and compassion to his characterisation of the
introverted accountant, Leo Bloom. Between then comes the lovely Christie
Whelan, who gives a winning performance as the sultry yet simple, Ulla.
While the central
triangle of these performers is more than enough fodder for humour in this
show, the greatest hilarity lies in the performances of the supporting
principals, many of whom stop the show cold with their hysterical
interpretations the roles. Trevor Ashley as Franz Liebkind lends an
appropriately over-the-top inappropriateness as the writer of the
musical-within-a-musical being staged: ‘Springtime For Hitler’. Directing
‘Hitler’ – and going on as the eponymous lead – is Mitchell Butel as Roger De
Bris, the gayer-than-laughter director of the show, supported by his ‘common
law assistant’, Carmen Ghia, played with great campery by Rohan Browne.
The Production
Company’s shows are staged mostly without fly-in sets and backdrops. Instead,
tiered and stepped platforms are used, along with various props, to suggest
settings. This worked particularly well for ‘The Producers’, given that it is
mainly set in an office and in a theatre. The costumes were also suitably
glamourous, with the showgirls being outfitted by noted Melbourne ‘gender
illusionist’ (read: drag queen), ‘Paris’. A constant of The Production Company
is their high quality orchestras, and this show was no exception. The orchestra
lent the appropriately full and brassy Broadway sound needed.
Production Company
shows are notorious for their short, intensive rehearsal periods. The entire
ensemble and supporting cast of ‘The Producers’ is therefore to be commended
for the quality of this production. In particular, audiences were treated to
many almost fully-realised choreographed numbers throughout the show, all of
them energetic and highly engaging.
I have been
attending The Production Company’s shows for more than ten years now and they
are always high quality productions. In the last couple of years, though, they
haven’t quite scaled the heights of their previous seasons. But ‘The Producers’
marks a return to form for them in its polish, energy and pizzazz. I look
forward to the rest of their 2012 season.
Verdict?
Homo hilarious
(The Abusicals two-word summary is, of course, tongue-in-cheek.)
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