Young Frankenstein
Opening Night: November 8, 2007
Closing: January 4, 2009
Theater: Foxwoods Theatre
Esteemed brain sugeon and professor Frederick Frankenstein faces a dilemma: Does he continue to run from his family’s dark past in Transylvania, or follow in his grandfather’s footsteps by reanimating the dead? And how about that sexy lab assistant, Inga?
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November 9, 2007
No, it is not nearly as good as The Producers, Mr. Brooks’ previous Broadway musical. No, it is not as much fun as the 1974 Mel Brooks movie, also called Young Frankenstein, on which it is based…
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April 22, 2014
Is the show – you know the question – funny? Sometimes. But the sweat of competence drives too much of the vintage Brooks humor this time, and the staging by ace director-choreographer Susan Stroman seems more formula than invention. They clobber us with greatest-hits punchlines and repeat the jokes in each musical stanza until we can’t always remember why we first loved them. At times, the mugging is so aggressive we feel bruised…Alas, something’s wrong in Transylvania when the only thing in stitches is the creature’s face.
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April 22, 2014
Young Frankenstein has no shortage of chuckles, a stellar cast and generous production values (full appreciation of which can be found in Variety’s Seattle review of Aug. 24). But it’s a far more mechanical creation, with little of the heart or liberating belly laughs of its predecessor. (The Producers)…Not helped by an assaultive but unclear sound mix, the cast works hard but gets a little lost onstage, and many of the jokes along with them….if musical-makers are going to continue to mine movies as source material for anything beyond theme-park jollies, reinvention, not just reproduction, has to figure in the formula.
READ THE REVIEWApril 22, 2014
Make no mistake: The show is big and entertaining. But it never matches the delirious thrills of The Producers Many of Brooks’ songs disappoint. They lack the snap and wit he’s shown before and do nothing to move the story along… isn’t the joyous celebration one hoped for (or one worth premiere prices).
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April 22, 2014
An extravagantly silly number called "Roll in the Hay" spills sexual innuendo all over the Hilton Theatre stage just about 20 minutes into Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, the musical adaptation of the 1974 laff-riot flick he co-wrote with Gene Wilder. The sequence — dumb in the dumb-like-a-fox manner typical of Brooks’ best work — is one of a series of entertaining sequences that make this follow-up to The Producers a Transylvanian barrel of fun, even if it falls short of the vaunted level reached by its uproarious predecessor.
READ THE REVIEWApril 22, 2014
Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein is one of my favorite movies. In fact, in my review of "The Producers" on Broadway I expressed the hope that Brooks would next tackle a theatrical adaptation of Young Frankenstein. Well, beware of what you wish for because despite very similar treatments, lightning does not strike twice. The Producers and Young Frankenstein are very different beasts.
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