DONNING THE RITZ Shuler Hensley and Roger Bart. |
As high points of comedy go, the "Putting On the Ritz" routine in Mell Brooks's Young Frankenstein has to be one of the avalanche-inducing helpless-laughter pinnacles. There is Peter Boyle as the clunky, speech-impeded monster, hulking about in a feeble attempt at song and dance -- syncopated song and dance, no less.
Well, Shuler Hensley thinks it was pretty funny too, calling it "one of those landmark pieces in film." It's good that he appreciates it, because he is performing the role of the monster -- his 260 pounds further padded, his 6'3" height ratcheted up with three- or four-inch platform clodhoppers, looking, he says, "like Shaquille O'Neal playing for the NFL." He's in the touring production at Providence Performing Arts Center through October 4.
But he doesn't have to mimic the role -- he gets the privilege of amplifying it, much as Brooks himself did with the film in adding songs to the musical. Hensley worked with first-class Broadway choreographer (five Tonys) Susan Stroman, developing it two summers ago in Seattle tryouts, then onto Broadway, and then the tour.
But is he intimidated by the fact that many, if not most, of the audience will unavoidably be watching him, at least initially, through the filter of the film performance?
"No, not at all," he said, in a phone interview. "Young Frankenstein, it's one of these movies we've all grown up with and have fond memories."
And it's camp, "a kind of Rocky Horror type thing," he says. "People come in and recognize, almost say the lines with you. We're not in any way trying to re-create the film, because it has its own identity, but just take all the familiar parts of it. Just 2-1/2 hours of a lot of fun."
Actually, Hensley couldn't clone the film version of his part if he wanted to. When he first got the job, he made a point of not watching the 1974 comedy again. Fortunately, though, he does retain the most important aspect of the monster -- his vulnerability.
"You have this disfigured creature on stage who is probably the most human of all the characters," he points out. "And he's the straight man in the piece. He's surrounded by crazy people.
"It goes back to Basic Acting 101, where because I don't have any dialogue until the very end, I get to just listen, actively listen," he says. "It's pretty liberating on stage. I don't have to worry [about dialogue] and can just be in the moment."
He thought about that opportunity. "It's interesting. In one of our final rehearsals last week, Susan stressed it is the key to this type of comedy [is] that you have to play everything as real and sincere as you possibly can and not play for the laughs. Humor comes out of playing against that. And that's Mel in a nutshell: his humor comes out of whatever it is you're doing."
As well as getting his marching orders from the script and further instructions from the director, he is getting additional advice -- from us.
