By Harry Haun
09 Nov 2007

"Cry-Baby is out in La Jolla right now," he relayed like a messenger from the front lines. "I was out there for the opening Tuesday night. It went pretty well. It was the first public performance. I think we saw the flaws, and we've got a lot of time to work on it."

That, too, won't be followed by a holiday — other than Death Takes a Holiday. "We're doing a workshop in December. They want to do it at Roundabout. Doug Hughes is directing."

After that will be the musical version of "Rocky." Now, would that be I? II? III? IV? Or V?, you might well ask. "Only I," said Meehan. "It was the only good one. It was made to be a musical. It's got all the elements. We will use 'Gonna Fly Now.' The score will be by the glorious ones, Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty. It's not too far away. Joe Mantello will direct. Sylvester Stallone won't be in it, but he's given us his blessing. He and I sat and worked it out together. It's really, on some level, autobiographical. He was an actor nobody cared about. The whole thing is an analogy of his own life."

Brooks and Meehan have been faithful to the "Young Frankenstein" film, and the former even translates some of the more memorable punchlines into song titles. Andrea Martin gets the Teutonic torch song, "He Vas My Boyfriend," as the haughty, haunted castlekeeper, Frau Blucher (whinny). And Brooks gives Sutton Foster and Megan Mullally — the hot-and-cold running girlfriends of Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (Roger Bart) —very apt signature songs: "Roll in the Hay" for his hot-blooded lab assistant and "Please Don't Touch Me" for his frigid fiancee. Frankenstein's used-body-parts monster makes spectacular strides from shuffle to soft-shoe "Puttin' on the Ritz" at Loew's Transylvanian Palace with his creator.

It's every baritone's dream to sing Irving Berlin on Broadway — and the inarticulate mangle that Hensley makes of that title is something. "I haven't watched the movie in, maybe, five years — but that sound is embedded in my head," he admitted. The song's title is even spelled out phonetically for him in the script. "Mainly consonants. There's about two vowels in that whole thing. It's like Czech. The payoff of the role is that I can't speak or sing until the end. It's one of those things where you think, 'I'd really love to sing here,' but I'm singing inside."

That's just a niggling regret. Otherwise, "this has been a terrific experience for me. Working with Mel Brooks, Susan Stroman, this cast — it's a no-brainer. I didn't need a brain. I don't know why they gave me one."

William Ivey Long, who costumed Contact's "The Girl in the Yellow Dress" ten times before he got it right for Stroman, was in a perpetual state of exacting alterations while the monster show was trying out in Seattle. "I did so many for this, for Megan and for Sutton, because the movement changes during rehearsal and then during out of town," he said.

"It's always exciting working with Susan and her movement. She's very demanding, but when you can finally please her, and please the movement, then that's very rewarding."

Hair stylist Paul Huntley took no credit for the Bride of Frankenstein wig for Mullally after she and The Monster copulate. "That was Susan's joke," he admitted. "We went much for the Elsa Lanchester look, not the Madeline Kahn." Extending the gag, Mullally appeared with her own personal hairdresser still teasing the already-towering λdo.

The star-cluster who came out for Young Frankenstein's first faulting step onto The Great White Way included — you should pardon my boldface — Walter Cronkite, Tommy Tune with Liz Smith, Joe Armstrong,Victoria Clark, Ted Sperling, Elaine Stritch, Mike Nichols, Silda Spitzer, Susan Graham, Bill Rosenfield, Marshall Efron and Alfa-Betty Olsen, Billy Crystal, Goldie Hawn, Martin Short, Rosie O'Donnell, Regis Philbin, Natalie Portman, Joy Behar, Mike Wallace, Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, Harry Smith, David Hasselhoff, Joan Rivers, Willa Kim, Harvey and Bob Weinstein, Brad Oscar, David Leveaux, Cindy Adams, Parker Posey, Jeff Blumenkrantz, Jason Moore — well, you get the idea . . .

The cast of Young Frankenstein takes its opening night bows.
photo by Aubrey Reuben

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