"Young Frankenstein": It's alive, but needs more life of its own

If you hear a recurring echo during the new Mel Brooks musical "Young Frankenstein," now in a pre-Broadway run at the Paramount Theatre, don't blame the sound system.

It's more likely patrons quoting aloud their favorite lines from the movie "Young Frankenstein," a beat before the actors do in this supersize, eager-to-please and arguably redundant musical comedy.

Affection for Brooks' 1974 same-titled film, an ingeniously mirthsome spoof of James Whale's iconic 1931 "Frankenstein" film, is rampant. And this musical version crafted by composer-writer Brooks, co-writer Thomas Meehan and hit maker director-choreographer Susan Stroman is alive — and often quite lively.

The show has reportedly grown tighter and smoother in its run here. But it has not yet escaped the looming shadow of its celluloid model and come into its own.

Staged by Stroman with impressive fluidity, given its heft, "Young Frankenstein" has a cast of expert merrymakers; shtick galore; winning dance numbers; elaborate sets by Robin Wagner that are marvels of seamless stage technology; and all the explosions, fog and wowie lighting effects (by Peter Kaczorowski) a rumored $20 million budget can buy.

But the humor is choppy, and the one-liners repeated from the film script (by Brooks and Gene Wilder) can fall flat. The musical is freshest and funniest in the second act, when it stops doggedly aping the film and lets the actors concoct their own comic chemistry.

Compared with the cultish Brooks flick "The Producers," which leveraged a hit Broadway musical by the same creative team, the film "Young Frankenstein" is more episodic and, line for line, much better known. So the musical faces a dilemma similar to that of its Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (that's Fronken-steen), played here by Roger Bart.

Frederick has a burdensome ancestry: His grandpa Victor Frankenstein was a scientist who discovered how to animate the dead. Once Frederick inherits the old boy's gloomy Transylvanian castle and servants Igor (terrific Christopher Fitzgerald) and Frau Blucher (the incomparable Andrea Martin), he's sucked into that lab full of cool-looking thingamabobs that light up and levitate.

His experiments produce a roaring, 7-foot monster (Shuler Hensley), who terrorizes the local village and ravishes Frederick's standoffish fiancée, Elizabeth (Megan Mullally). But after about a gazillion crude innuendos and genitalia jokes (hey, it's a Mel Brooks show!), everything ends nicely.

Brooks has composed some 18 songs for the show, mostly breezy knockoffs with a Gypsy or vaudeville ring and shamelessly silly lyrics ("There is nothing like a brain!"). Most tunes are calling cards (Elizabeth's "Please Don't Touch Me"). At least one is superfluous ("Join the Family Business").

But there are two good vehicles for Stroman's clever choreography: "The Transylvania Mania," blending "42nd Street" hoofing with "Fiddler on the Roof" folk dancing; and "Puttin' on the Ritz," which expands the film's Monster-Frederick tap duet to the Irving Berlin song into a major extravaganza.

Cavorting underlings score some of the biggest laughs. Martin's role is deservedly expanded, and her brooding Frau Blucher is a wacko joy — especially when she makes like a demented Liza Minnelli in the Fosse-esque number, "He Vas My Boyfriend."

Fitzgerald hews close to Marty Feldman's endearing Igor but exudes much goofy verve of his own. As the monster, Hensley doesn't get to sing much (he's got a great basso voice), but he lumbers around like a stun-gunned bull, and with Fred Applegate adeptly revives the film's funniest set piece: the monster's slapstick visit with a blind hermit.

The lead actors have a bumpier go. Mullally's Elizabeth is no longer the timorous Dresden china doll Madeline Kahn played in the film but rather a "madcap" party girl sporting sexy duds (courtesy of costumer William Ivey Long) and a lockjaw accent. Mullally is amusing but not virginal — which undercuts the joke of Elizabeth's sexual awakening.

As Inga, the nubile lab assistant, Broadway's Sutton Foster is a fine singer ("Listen to Your Heart"), a champion yodeler ("Roll in the Hay") and a dexterous dancer. But she barely registers a personality, and Teri Garr's quirky cluelessness is missed.

If it seems unfair to compare the stage and film actors, it is also inevitable with a show that recycles so much of its source material. The actor most burdened by that is Bart. A first-class clown and robust singer, he's a pinched straight man for much of Act 1, and in the looser Act 2, he overworks the exasperated shrieking he borrows from Wilder's Frederick.

One hopes Bart finds his own groove soon. And though it may well draw crowds in any case, a less clonelike "Young Frankenstein" would be a better justification for all the expense and talent lavished on this celluloid spinoff when it lurches onto Broadway.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com