The result? ... Don't discount the joys of a free washer/dryer.
To this fan of all its incarnations stretching back to the 1968 film, The Producers, Vegas version, is a profound disappointment that, determined to contort itself into some perceived Cliffs Notes model for Strip success (one that Mamma Mia! triumphantly defied, by the way) has become a monument not to creative compromise, but creative capitulation. If it doesn't suffer death by a thousand cuts, about a dozen dooms it just as well. It's compounded by a cast that's surprisingly slack, given their pedigree from the Broadway and London productions. And David Hasselhoff plays gay with such an enormous wink to the audience that his performance is more attuned to Harvard's Hasty Pudding Club.
The plot probably needs no introduction, but just in case: Once a hit-maker, now hitless, producer Max Bialystock (Brad Oscar) is inadvertently inspired by his milquetoast accountant, Leo Bloom (Larry Raben), to stage a guaranteed disaster called Springtime for Hitler by nutty Nazi playwright Franz Liebkind (Fred Applegate) and flee to Rio with investment capital Max wheedles from schtupping horny old ladies—who squeal "Hold me, touch me! Lick me, bite me!" and play games like "the virgin milkmaid and the well-hung stable boy." Of course, Mel Brooks' vaudevillian insanity ensues. Charged with turning this Tony-lavished titan into a greyhound, Brooks and director/choreographer Susan Stroman sliced it from its two-hour-40-minute Broadway grandeur to a built-for-speed 90 minutes, bringing it in with efficient punctuality. (If that's the ultimate priority, remember that Mussolini supposedly kept the trains running on time, too.) Now it sprints so breathlessly you'll be more inclined to time it than enjoy it.
Dialogue and scene trims brusquely advance plot at the expense of character, and the musical cuts are curious. "The King of Broadway" that introduces Max in Act I—deleted without consequence from the 2005 movie by going directly to Max and Leo's loopy office meeting that nicely establishes both characters—is reinstated. But the adorable and affectionate "That Face," a flirty song-and-dance courtship between Leo and hot-blond secretary Ulla (Leigh Zimmerman), is axed, destroying the foundation for their sweet romance that now seems dropped in from another play. "In Old Bavaria," a disposable Franz number also struck from the movie, remains, while "Der Guten Tag Hop Clop"—a hilariously physical showcase of Franz's comic dementia, with Max and Leo singing and dancing along—disappears. And late-play showstopper "Betrayed," a tour de force in which imprisoned, embittered Max delivers a machine-gun recap of the plot, is sacrificed, perhaps because with all the cuts, not everything that happens in The Producers happens in this Producers. The remaining highlights—Leo's fantasy "I Wanna Be a Producer," the campy "Keep it Gay," poignant "'Til Him" and lavishly loony "Springtime for Hitler"—still have legs in an otherwise amputated score.
Since Oscar's Max channels Nathan Lane (who channeled Zero Mostel), comparisons are fair, but not flattering. Oscar barks with requisite comic bluster, but it amounts to mad gesticulating, devoid of Lane's devilish glee and smart-bomb delivery. Raben's Leo is mostly a pre-programmed dullard, never quite believable as an uber-neurotic nebbish—his anxiety attacks have an on-cue, Pavlovian vibe—and even less so as a man with lifelong dreams to produce shows. As nutso Nazi Franz, Applegate is passive and cuddly, drained of the cuckoo comic menace that should keep Max and Leo as intimidated as they are incredulous. (Though the heil-Hitler-saluting puppet pigeons are a hoot.)
As for Mr. Baywatch Beefcake as gay director Roger DeBris—a secondary part twisted by a marketing campaign into the illusion of a lead role—he seems reluctant to leave his Hoffness at the stage door. Entering in a gown to the thunderous hoots and applause that seem to beg him to acknowledge the he-man-as-she-man gag, he does just that, winking at the character rather than committing to it. A jokey attitude toward a character who's already a joke robs the audience of the suspension of disbelief necessary for it to work comically. His forced, basso-voiced flamboyance goes beyond butch-gay posturing into a macho lampooning of gayness. (Relax, Hoff: We're not going to think you're really gay.) He's got some nice moments playing Roger-as-Der Fuehrer singing "Heil Myself," but they are fleeting. There's an art to playing over-the-top, and it's trusting the material to go over the top for you, rather than sailing over the cliff with it.
Sadly, anyone who only sees The Producers on the Strip cannot claim to have seen The Producers.
But by now, we know that predicting the fate of Broadway hits on the Great Neon Way is a fool's exercise. High camp? Vegas catnip. But Hairspray, though sheared of time and tunes, wilted in the desert. Meanwhile, Mamma Mia!, flaunting its full Broadway length and nearly unpardonable intermission, discos on. And Phantom, a different animal altogether, thrives on its own bizarre mystique.
Hasselhoff's ersatz drag act and marquee punch—a box-office jolt denied Avenue Q and Hairspray—may initially be enough to keep The Producers in production. He's signed for only three months, though that could be extended. This show is gambling on Vegas minus any creative aces. But as poker players know—and the Paris is probably praying—you don't need aces to draw a full house.