Up close and personal with The Producers
The Producers began as a film in 1967 before being adapted into a record-breaking Broadway musical in 2001. It’s next stop is Hayes Theatre in Sydney.
“I feel it’s my life’s calling to make a fool of Nazis,” Anton Berezin told The AJN. The actor, singer and producer was discussing his latest role as Max Bialystock in The Producers, saying it’s a joy to bring the production to the stage once more.
The Producers, Mel Brooks’ audacious comedy, began as a film in 1967 before being adapted into a record-breaking Broadway musical in 2001.
The story follows Max, a down-on-his-luck Broadway producer, and Leo Bloom, a timid accountant who discovers producers could potentially make more money with a flop than a hit. Together, they scheme to produce the worst show possible — Springtime for Hitler — with the intention of it failing spectacularly so they can abscond with investors’ money. Their plan backfires when the show becomes an unexpected hit, interpreted by audiences as brilliant satire rather than the offensive disaster they intended.
The dialogue is sharp, witty and quick, and the story has very much become an iconic cult classic with household names taking on the characters in the film and on Broadway – Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder in the film, and Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick in the Broadway adaptation, which won a record-breaking 12 Tony Awards and revitalised the musical comedy genre on Broadway.
Berezin was part of the original Australian production, playing the understudy for both the title character Max Bialystock and Franz the Nazi. While he never got on stage, he said he was privileged to learn both parts, describing it as exciting because Mel Brooks’ humour is the very humour he grew up on.
“My formative humour is basically informed by Mel Brooks,” he said. “The Producers movie was my favourite film growing up. It’s so fabulously Jewish in its self-deprecating humour, and Brooks’ voice is in every character, every lyric. The play is his voice, his worldview and how ludicrous the world we live in is.”
Berezin described Brooks as South Park before the South Park boys were even born, saying he “lampoons every prejudice, everything we think is important. He shows us how silly the world can be and not to take ourselves too seriously.”
Berezin said Max is a dense character and described the song Betrayed as “frenetic”.
“If you get one word wrong, you’ve lost it. It’s gone, you’re not getting it back,” he laughed. But he said his favourite song and scene of all time is the titular song, Springtime for Hitler.
“It’s cuckoo bananas,” Berezin recalled. “You’ve got cannons going off, a kickline of Gestapo, a handsome Nazi tenor singing this love song to Hitler. This show would never be written now. We would not have the courage to push the boundaries like this.”
Given the past couple of years we have all had, Berezin believes the production will be a cathartic experience for audiences. “The fact that this is still resonating more than 50 years later, it still touches a raw nerve, means we haven’t really come as far as we’ve thought.”
As for the venue – Hayes Theatre – Berezin described it as the “beating heart of musical theatre in Australia”.
“At the heart of it, The Producers is a buddy comedy, and with the intimacy of venue, I think it’s going to be absolutely gorgeous, up close and personal. But it will sell out!”
The Producers is showing at Hayes Theatre from March 29. Tickets: hayestheatre.com.au/event/the-producers
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