Sunset Playhouse Satisfies with 'The Producers'

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Sunset Playhouse embraces an ambitious comedy with its staging of Mel Brooks’ The Producers. Director Tommy Lueck juggles a massive cast with a humble pairing of talents at its center.

There’s a tumbling precision to Robert A. Zimmerman’s comic instincts of disheveled desperation as down-on-his luck Broadway Producer Max Bialystok. Zach Zembrowski delicately assembles the neurotic fragility of Bialystock’s meek business partner Leo Bloom, who stumbles onto the idea of getting rich by producing a mega-flop Broadway show. Zimmerman and Zembrowski have a charming dynamic as Bialystock and Bloom embark on a journey to epic failure.

The first figure the two producers encounter is Franz Liebkind— the demented author of surefire failure Springtime for Hitler. Towering Steven Sizer plays the role of the crazy German with a smart musicality and just the right level of insanity—positively dwarfing the two producers who are clearly in over their heads in many ways.

Bialystock and Bloom’s second stop on the way to failure finds them in the presence of fabulous diva Broadway director Roger DeBris. Eric Safideh-Nelson is a glittering drama queen in the role. He reaches a point of near-combustion when the production’s Hitler drops out due to a broken leg opening night. As DeBris, Safideh-Nelson is a dazzlingly effeminate comic Hitler.

More than simply a spoof of big Broadway-style musicals, The Producers is a massively overwhelming musical all its own. Under the direction of Lueck, the show gracefully manages the blindingly subtle irony of being precisely the sort of thing it’s making fun of. It’s a delicate balance between joke and punchline that Lueck and company manage quite well.

Through Aug. 5 at Furlan Auditorium, on 700 Wall St., Elm Grove. For ticket reservations, call 262-782-4430 or visit www.sunsetplayhouse.com.