Critical Overview
When The Producers opened its trial run in Chicago, it was well-received, but was not the universally-loved, critic-proof behemoth it was to later become. Chicago Sun-Times theater critic Hedy Weiss was impressed by the show, but was well aware that it was a ‘‘buoyant boisterous musicaltheater time machine,’’ referring to Mel Brooks’s ‘‘giddy, childlike, pseudo-naïve irreverence and intentional bad taste’’ and ‘‘the blatant silliness of his old-time jokes and attitudes.’’ Weiss went on to say, ‘‘Unapologetically politically incorrect, he has concocted what 50 years ago would have been called ‘the tired businessman’s show,’ with sexpot and all—a pure, simple, self-confidently anachronistic entertainment.’’
Two months later, the show opened in New York, taking the town by storm. In the New York Times, which has a long-standing tradition of setting the standards for Broadway (and, by extension, for the theater world), Ben Brantley’s review from April 20, 2001, started, ‘‘How do you single out highlights in a bonfire? Everybody who sees The Producers—and that should be as close to everybody as the St. James Theater allows—is going to be hard-pressed to choose one favorite bit from the sublimely ridiculous spectacle that opened last night. . . . It is, to put it simply, the real thing: a big Broadway book musical that is so ecstatically drunk on its powers to entertain that it leaves you delirious, too.’’
To deal with the unprecedented popularity of the show, ticket prices were immediately hiked, from $90 to $100. Later, to foil scalpers who were monopolizing the best seats for months to come, the show’s backers took the unprecedented move of raising top prices to an astronomical $480 apiece.
At the 2001 Antoinette Perry (‘‘Tony’’) Awards, The Producers made history by receiving 12 statuettes, breaking the record of 10 awarded to Hello Dolly in 1964. Among the Tonys won were best lead actor (Nathan Lane); best featured actor (Gary Beach); best featured actress (Cady Huffman); best director and best choreography (Susan Stroman); and, unexpectedly, best musical score for Brooks, who, at 74 years old, had never written music for a Broadway show before.
One area of contention about this show has always been its offensive comic portrayals of blacks, women, gays, etc. Jim Seavor, writing for a largely gay audience in the Providence Journal-Bulletin, acknowledged complaints that the play made fun of homosexuals, but his response was that it was funny; that there were other venues where audiences can see more well-rounded portrayals; and that, in the context of The Producers, gays are ‘‘simply part of a large group of over-the-top characters. Everyone is a target.’’ He also pointed out that the characters that seem outrageous to audiences are taken as being fairly normal by other characters on the stage. He concluded, ‘‘In a way, it’s a relief to sit there and laugh at what we’ve been told we should no longer laugh at.’’
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