The Mel Brooks classic Young Frankenstein and his monster were alive and kicking, singing, dancing, and terrorizing the citizens of Transylvania last week at Shea's Performing Arts Center.
The musical, written by Brooks and Thomas Meehan, was originally adapted from the story-turned-screenplay written by Brooks and Gene Wilder back in 1974. With music and lyrics done by Brooks, this musical proves that it can cross any generational gap by bringing in the laughs from audience members of all ages.
The story starts out when Dr. Frankenstein (Christopher Ryan), pronounced Fronk-en-steen, a medical teacher in New York, received news that his grandfather in Transylvania has died and has left his estate to him.
Despite being well aware that his family over in Transylvania is known for bringing the dead back to life, Dr. Frankenstein reluctantly travels overseas, leaving his beautiful but high-maintenance fiancée Elizabeth (Janine Divita) in New York to deal with the legalities of the situation.
Upon arriving in Transylvania, however, Dr. Frankenstein is greeted by Igor (Cory English), pronounced Eye-gor, who is the most recent in a long line of manservants to the Frankenstein household. From there, Dr. Frankenstein's adventures only escalate as he meets his new well-endowed lab assistant, Inga (Synthia Link), and housekeeper Frau Blucher (Joanna Glushak). Together they try to complete his grandfather's work in bringing a corpse back to life while evading the angry town mob at every turn.
The musical follows closely to the film, only introducing new elements when deemed necessary to bring first-time viewers up to speed on who the main characters are. In order to do this, each character is introduced with a song that describes the qualities and characteristics specific to each person.
In "The Brain," Dr. Frankenstein emphasizes how much he wanted to be taken seriously as a medical doctor and separate himself as far from his mad-scientist relatives as possible. However, after a change of heart, Dr. Frankenstein and Igor sing "Together Again for the First Time," which is a salute to their grandfathers and what their ancestors had accomplished.
The performance was filled with all of the classic raunchy sexual jokes that the movie provides, such as the song "Deep Love," in which Elizabeth sings to express her sexual satisfaction. The musical supplemented the jokes with fresh cultural references for the younger crowd, as shown in a number about Igor's humpback in which he and Dr. Frankenstein go back and forth about his hump, his hump, his lovely Igor hump, an obvious homage to "My Humps" by Black Eyed Peas.
For anyone that is a true fan of Brooks, and is familiar with his other comedies like The Producers, which won a record-breaking 12 Tony Awards, Blazing Saddles and Spaceballs, it's a given that turning a classic comedic movie into an equally funny stage adaptation is a hard thing to do. However, if the performance is taken for what it is – a live musical adaptation of the movie – then the cast and crew of Young Frankenstein really delivered a memorable and comical performance.
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