Chatham Life & Style

by al Riggs, contributor

Young Frankenstein ★

October 22 - November 7, 2021

North Raleigh Arts and Creative Theatre

Raleigh, NC

Learn more and purchase tickets HERE.

Story Time, gather ‘round. 

The first time I went to New York City, for more than one night’s stay, was when I was 16. I went with my mom. I remember having a great time eschewing the usual landmarks, favoring browsing (the at-the-time still operational) Virgin Records, walking through the Bronx Zoo, having my first panic-attack-stricken pizza ordering experience, and seeing my very first Broadway show: the Mel Brooks-penned-and-scored Young Frankenstein, based on his 1974 film of the same name. 

I was, and still am, a Brooks devotee. Both Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles (released in the same year) are on my top ten list of greatest comedies and greatest films of all time. I know both films back and forth, and I even continue to stick up for the much-maligned film adaptation of The Producers stage musical. 

But there’s no sticking up for Young Frankenstein as a musical--a miserable, tuneless exercise in Too Much of a Good Thing. Oh sure, on the big broad way we call Broadway the budgets and stages were respectively overblown and gorgeous in 2007, trying to make up for a disappointingly weak script. Jokes we’ve all laughed at millions of times fall flat, welcoming kind chuckles and polite applause. It got terrible reviews, no one seemed to ever want to put it on themselves, and it felt completely and deservedly dead. 

The decision to revive this corpse (get it, it’s a joke, do you get it) on NRACT’s part might be considered admirable if they had tried anything new. Or tried anything at all. Instead, we have what we have, which is an inconsistent and unfinished mess. 

Thomas Mauney seems to have split the difference in his efforts to direct the production and be its scenic, props, and lighting designer; he fell flat all four times. Set details are nonexistent; the black and white walls of the three-deep leveled set are left almost completely bare throughout the show, only occasionally spinning around to reveal a door pretending to be a bookcase, or a set of doors with huge knockers. A lack of attempt to create a mad scientist’s laboratory feels the most damning. There are no fake levers on the wall, and barely any props--just a smooth, empty room with some green lights and a platform, with no written material or interesting stage direction to make up for the emptiness.

There isn't even lighting design to simulate lightning, flashes of fire, or changes of mood--things we usually see in a show involving lightning, flashes of fire, and changes of mood. Mauney just flips the lights on when scenes start and flips them off when they end.

And, unfortunately, the cast didn’t do much to help things. Tedd Szeto’s inert performance as Dr. Frederick Frankenstein has us worried that an actor has just wandered on stage to deliver the necessary lines to keep the plot moving. There is no emotional or comedic arc to be felt in his, or many other performances throughout the production. Greg Toft’s Igor is simply too busy, too hammy--more Harpo than Groucho--and absolutely desperate to land every thudding punchline. 

The one person who felt like they truly knew what they were getting themselves into was a perfectly, soaringly corny Lauren Bamford as Fredrick’s fiancé Elizabeth, who thankfully belted out some much needed balanced energy from within a cast that seemed to otherwise remain perfectly still or sloppily stagger. “Deep Love,” in both composing and performance, is the only song worth writing about, as Bamford sold every double entendre as seriously as a heart attack.  

I came back to my seat post-intermission like a coal miner returning from a coffee break: exhausted and dreading my return back into The Hole. Thankfully, both Brooks' show and this production do get better in the shorter second act. The highlight of this production was “Putting On The Ritz,” a charming tap-dancing number excellently choreographed by Freddie Lee Heath. It was the rare moment of consistency in a slap-dash production that refused to congeal into something worth taking time for.

Young Frankenstein, the musical, feels like an unfortunate pock mark on Mel Brooks' near-flawless legacy, and it feels like that for NRACT as well--a company known for putting together so much with so little. But I don’t think anything written here could have fully saved this creature--it was dead on arrival. -- a. Riggs

al Riggs (they/them), contributor, is a professional singer-songwriter based in Durham, NC. As well as operating Horse Complex Records, they have performed at large-scale festivals, recorded with popular musicians nation-wide, toured nationally, and appeared on numerous podcasts under both their own name and as VAXXERS and Criswell Brushes. al’s album reviews, concert reviews, and festival diaries have also appeared in Pedal Fuzz and Rezonatr. Learn more about al’s music work at alriggs.bandcamp.com.