Though production values and technical aspects fall far short of professional theater standards, there’s a good deal to entertain audiences in Whittier Community Theatre’s production of Young Frankenstein thanks to Mel Brooks’ laugh-filled, double entendre-packed book, the comedy master’s tuneful, clever songs, and an enthusiastic young cast.

Like Brooks’ 1974 hit movie follow-up to Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein The Musical recounts the tale of renowned brain surgeon Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (Jason Miramontes), who, upon receiving news that he has inherited his mad scientist grandfather’s estate, leaves his prestigious position as Dean Of Anatomy at New York’s Johns, Miriam and Anthony Hopkins School of Medicine to travel to mysterious Eastern Europe.

Leaving behind his bubble-headed, touch-averse socialite fiancée Elizabeth (Amber Rivette), Dr. “Fronkensteen” heads off to Transylvania Heights where he is greeted by a hunchback named Igor pronounced Eye-gore (Bryant Melton), a nubile blonde lab assistant named Inga (Brittani Prenger), and the sinister Frau Bucher (Patty Rangel), whose very name inspires fear in the hearts of men and horses, but particularly of horses.

Despite his initial reservations, Frederick soon makes a life-changing decision—to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps and reanimate the dead, the result of which is the return to life of a seven-foot, green-faced creature known only as The Monster (Guy C. van Empel).

Young Frankenstein The Musical recreates the movie’s most memorable sequences, including the monster’s ill-fated encounter with a blind hermit named Harold (Jason Falske), the classic “Put… the candle… back!” scene, and the top-hat-and-tails musical extravaganza of Irving Berlin’s “Puttin’ On The Ritz.”

Brooks’ dozen-and-a-half original songs make for a catchy, lyrically clever bunch, and this being Mel, audiences can expect plenty of double entendres (or simply downright dirty jokes) along the way. (When was the last Broadway show in which you heard a chorus of female voices harmonizing to “Don’t dare to touch our tits!” Or heard lines like: “Victor won the three-legged race … all by himself.” Or heard a woman declaring in song, “Now I will keep love deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper forever inside!”)

Like countless Whittier Community Theatre summer musicals before it, Young Frankenstein offers stage experience to aspiring performers and a chance for friends and family to cheer them on.

This means a larger-than-usual featured ensemble–Jennifer Bales, Danielle Carlson, Garrett Ching, Erik Cortez, dance captain Sofia Covarrubias, Grecia Cruz, Victor Davila, Vanessa Doss, Juliana Guerrero, Victor Gutierrez, Jennifer Harmon, Emmanuel Hernandez, Carlos David Lopez, Cynthia Martinez, Tatiana Martinez, Evan Pascual, Tara Sanchez, Natalie Villalobos, Jared Whiston, and Don Yeomans–executing multiple cameos under Amy Miramontes’ direction, the dancers among them earning deserved whoops and hollers for a taptastic “Puttin’ On The Ritz” spotlighting choreographer Jocelyn Sanchez’s high-energy moves.

Other Sanchez-and-company showcases include the show-opening “The Happiest Town” (which has the residents of Transylvania Heights celebrating Grandpa Frankenstein’s demise), “Please Don’t Touch Me” (featuring some hilarious ballroom dancing sans body contact), “Join The Family Business” (with Frederick cavorting with his dead ancestors in Albert Einstein wigs), and the wild and wacky “Transylvania Mania.” (And that’s just Act One.)

Delivering the evening’s standout performance as the nuttiest and most likable of mad scientists, triple-threat Miramontes makes the role originated by Gene Wilder entirely his own.

Tops among featured players are Rangel, a violin-stroking hoot as the mysterious and spooky Frau Blucher (whose unexpected confession that “He Vas My Boyfriend” stops the show) and van Empel, who not only takes The Monster from grunting hulk to erudite sophisticate, he does so looking like a reanimated ringer for the movie’s Peter Boyle.

Prenger’s effervescent Inga, Rivette’s cultivated and conceited Elizabeth, Melton’s Cockney charmer of an Igor, and Falske’s delightfully klutzy Hermit all have their standout moments as well, as does ensemble member Hernandez as Ziggy, the flamingest of town imbeciles.

Musical director Kevin Wiley not only elicits overall fine vocal performances, he conducts and plays keyboards in Young Frankenstein’s quite good eight-piece orchestra.

Melissa Tanaka and Nancy Tyler score high marks for their innumerable array of costumes, from peasant wear to tophat and tails (and everything in between), and though images projected on a proscenium-sized white sheet are an only-okay substitute for a full-fledged scenic design, they do set the scene.

Unfortunately, the production’s modular set pieces take forever to get pushed and pulled into place adding up to a ton of show-halting scene changes that could have been executed far more swiftly and less conspicuously by mobilizing cast members instead of an obtrusive if hard-working stage crew often still in the midst of moving things around when lights go up. (The show runs a whopping three hours, in part because of these time-consuming set changes.) And though it’s perhaps understandable given over two-dozen miked cast members, I couldn’t begin to count the number of times that mikes were still turned off when they should already have been switched on.

Young Frankenstein is produced by Rangel and Andy Kresowski. Rosalva Reza-Estrada is stage manager. Suzanne Frederickson is technical director.

Technical glitches and design deficiencies aside, there are plenty of laughs to be had and a number of performances to be cheered in Young Frankenstein. If nothing else, it proves that Whittier Community Theatre is still alive and kicking at just two years short of one hundred.

Whittier Community Theatre, The Center Theatre, 7630 S. Washington Ave., Whittier.
www.WhittierCommunityTheatre.org

–Steven Stanley
September 6, 2019

Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, Mel Brooks, Whittier Community Theatre