Word: stroman
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...PRODUCERS Starring Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane, Uma Thurman, Will Ferrell. Directed by Susan Stroman. Opens...
...when Broderick and Lane got together for a rehearsal, something unexpected happened. They made each other better. "It was very intimate," says Susan Stroman, who directed Lane and Broderick in The Producers both on Broadway and in the upcoming movie version. "I knew immediately, when Matthew said his first line, 'Mr. Bialystock, anybody here...
...those dynamics will be writ large when The Producers, which TIME saw in an exclusive screening, hits theaters. Stroman, in her debut as a film director, has given the play an extremely faithful adaptation. It's more Singin' in the Rain than Chicago: fast-paced, no darkness, no interior fantasy sequences, just gags a-go-go. "It's packed full of comedy," Stroman says. "It's a comedy musical more than it is a musical comedy." Much of the Broadway cast returns, although two key roles are taken over by movie stars: Will Ferrell as a neo-Nazi playwright...
...here, perhaps to suit his sober theme. The cast around him works hard, including pros like Roger Bart (who replaced Saturday Night Live?s Chris Kattan at the last minute) and comic John Byner (slyly underplaying as Charon, the wisecracking pilot of the boat to Hades). And director Susan Stroman (The Producers) has pitched in with everything from bungee cords and backflipping frogs. It all might have worked if the central conceit didn?t seem so fusty and out of touch. Summoning George Bernard Shaw to save the nation? How many people today even know his plays, much less remember...
...they're being given a bold new interpretation. For the first, how about putting together a couple of the terrific one-acts that Israel Horovitz and Terrence McNally were turning out in the 1960s and '70s (The Indian Wants the Bronx; Next)? For the second, with Susan Stroman and Twyla Tharp reinvigorating Broadway dance, what better time for a new West Side Story? For the third, well, let's just say if anybody is thinking of bringing back Death of a Salesman, it had damned well better star Eminem...