MEL BROOKS - BROADWAY CRITICS SLAM MUSICAL FRANKENSTEIN

Critics are puttin' on the razz for Mel Brooks' attempt to recreate his 1974 comedy Young Frankenstein as a Broadway musical. "The show takes many of the elements that made The Producers such a delight and then saps them of their joy by overselling them," Ben Brantley wrote in the New York Times. Out of town critics who converged on Broadway for the opening were even harsher. In the Chicago Tribune, Chris Jones called it "a colossal -- and, boy, is this show a monster -- disappointment." Peter Marks in the Washington Post described the show as "a teeter-tottering patchwork of slipshod gags, recycled dance routines and tinny tunes." Several critics note that the show opened with terrific buzz and such high expectations that few doubted it would sell out -- even with orchestra seats going for $450 at the box office and for thousands of dollars through scalpers. But as Charles McNulty in the Los Angeles Times observed: "We enter wanting to bust a gut, so no wonder we're a little let down when we leave with only a nostalgic grin." And Louise Kennedy concluded in the Boston Globe that the show "has millions of dollars' worth of pyrotechnics and other special effects with which to light up the stage, and it deploys them with abandon. Unfortunately, though, that doesn't mean that lightning strikes twice."


09/11/2007