Stuart Nulman's Grapevine: It’s springtime for the Segal Centre, as its triumphantly concludes its season with first-ever Yiddish production of “The Producers”

The Segal Centre for Performing Arts has concluded its 2015-2016 season in a blaze of glory, as the Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre and the Cote St. Luc Dramatic Society teamed up to present the first ever Yiddish language version of Mel Brooks' blockbuster Broadway musical “The Producers”.

Elan Kunin as Franz Liebkind

If you were a fan of the original 1968 classic comedy movie that was written and directed by Brooks (which earned him an Oscar for best original screenplay), or saw the Broadway musical version that won 12 Tony Awards, the plot is quite familiar. Max Bialystock, (Sam Stein) is a Broadway producer who was once “the King of Broadway”, but is now past his prime after staging a string of improbable flops. Facing imminent bankruptcy, he is visited by a shy, timid, insecure accountant named Leo Bloom (Mikey Samra), and while trying to fix his books, accidentally comes upon a plot for Bialystock to make a pile of money. All he has to do is to find the worst Broadway musical ever written, hire a grade Z director and performers, and get his network of little old ladies to invest a lot of money in the show. And after the show opens – and closes – on Broadway on the same night, Bialystock pockets practically all of the investors’ cash (minus the minimal costs to stage the single performance of the show in question).

Simple isn’t it? So Bialystock and Bloom team up to initiate this scheme and find what they believe to be is THE worst Broadway musical ever – “Springtime for Hitler” by a rather shell shocked playwright named Franz Liebkind (Elan Kunin).. It looks like easy money in the bank for Bialystock & Bloom; however, there is one slight problem: “Springtime for Hitler” turns into a surprise smash hit on Broadway!

Both the Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre and the Cote St. Luc Dramatic Society faced a monumental challenge in staging a classic comedy that is “The Producers” into a Yiddish language production; however, they have succeeded tremendously. The musical numbers were done with so much Broadway quality to them, and that is especially so with the “Springtime for Hitler” number that opens the show’s secnd half; It is done with a great deal of subtlety and good taste (tap dancing storm troopers and all), that it never loses its sense of absurdity, and was easily the showstopper of the entire production. The actors who perform such Brooksian main characters as Max Bialystock, Leo Bloom, and Franz Liebkind will have you chuckling a lot (especially those who are familiar with the original 1968 film version), and they portray them in keeping with the original spirit of the ’68 movie (which is another salute to the highly absurd comic vision of Mel Brooks). And for those who are familiar with the Yiddish language, there is a good mix of Yiddish and English that offers a realistic linguistic balance of the old school world of the onstage and offstage world of Broadway (the only Yiddish interaction is between Bialystock and Bloom, and there are simultaneous translations in English and French that are a great help).

The Segal Centre’s production of “The Producers” in Yiddish will certainly make Mel Brooks, Gene Wilder and the late Zero Mostel proud of this production (and hopefully, Brooks – who recently celebrated his 90^th birthday -- will make the trip to Montreal to see it). It’s a definite must-see; it runs at the Segal Centre from now until July 10. To buy your tickets, call 514-739-7944, or go to www.segalcentre.org.