'It's Alive!' The Making of a Monster (Hit)

It was a dark and stormy night. Outside Bay Street Theater, a deluge of rain pooled on streets and flooded sidewalks. Lightning flashed, creating a strobe effect throughout Sag Harbor, while cracks of thunder permeated the air, echoing as they rolled down Long Wharf and out over the waters of the darkening bay.

Ironically, the weather was much the same inside Bay Street Theater.

It was the first Saturday in August, opening night of “Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein — The Musical.” With high season here and temperatures at a boiling point — on the roads, in our politics and in the air — it’s fortunate that the powers that be at Bay Street have decided to deliver exactly what we want at this point, that is the most delightfully monstrous musical of the summer.

And on opening night, it seemed as if the show’s production team had managed to summon storms, both inside and out, on cue, providing us with a massive and much needed relief valve.

Technically speaking, there’s nothing particularly young about “Young Frankenstein,” which was born in 1974 as a top grossing film. Its creator, the insanely talented Mel Brooks, wrote the screenplay with actor Gene Wilder, who starred as Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (pronounced “Fronkensteen”), the reluctant grandson of a mad monster maker who inherits the homestead and soon finds himself back in the old country, cooking up the old family recipe in his grandfather’s basement lab.

The musical version of “Young Frankenstein” came more than 30 years later, hitting Broadway in 2007 with music and lyrics by Mel Brooks — along with the book, which he wrote with Thomas Meehan — and original direction and choreography by Susan Stroman.

This Bay Street version is marvelously directed by Gerry McIntyre, who also choreographed the show, and it’s carried out faithfully by a fabulous cast that knows exactly what they’re here to do and do it with style. The show is being presented as a co-production with the Berkshire Theatre Group in Pittsfield, Mass. (where it played earlier this summer) and Geva Theatre Center in Rochester (where it will travel this fall after its Sag Harbor run).

For those of a certain generation, this show is pure comfort food for the soul — if you know, you know. The musical opens with the black-and-white 20th century-Fox opening sequence flickering to life on a screen at the rear of the stage while the lilting notes of the haunting violin theme rise and the players enter, introduced on screen in the opening credits.

This year marks the film’s 50th anniversary, and for those who don’t know the story, “Young Frankenstein” takes its inspiration from Mary Shelley’s famous 19th century novel by way of 1930s-era film adaptations of the tale. In Bay Street’s “Young Frankenstein – The Musical” the multifaceted Matthew Hydzik plays Dr. Frederick Frankenstein who, despite his desire to distance himself from his family’s gruesome reputation, travels to Transylvania (of course) to check out the castle he has inherited where his late grandfather worked.

Bidding farewell to his prudishly uptight fiancé Elizabeth Benning (Aléna Watters), Frederick sails to Europe where he is met by a cast of colorful characters with a connection to his ancestors, including Igor — pronounced “Eyegor” — the bulging-eyed servant with a migrating back issue (played by James Romney), sexy laboratory assistant Inga (Kyla Stone) and Frau Blücher (Veanne Cox) the humorless housekeeper who has a certain way with horses.

With encouragement from his new friends, it doesn’t take long for Frederick to be swept up in a reinvention of his grandfather’s work, procuring a recently deceased body that is soon reanimated as The Monster (Sean Bell), a song and dance man about town who, nevertheless, terrifies the villagers and has a most memorable encounter with the blind Hermit (Aaron Choi) who just wants someone to love.

This cast brings their A game to the show and they are obliviously having a marvelous time. Particularly hilarious is Romney’s Igor, Bell as The Monster and Veanne Cox, whose portrayal of Frau Blücher is an absolute scream. She sings the delightfully dour number “He Vas My Boyfriend” and delivers some of the play’s most memorably sidesplitting lines, all while knowingly side eyeing the audience without cracking a smile.

If there’s a flaw with “Young Frankenstein – The Musical,” it lies not in the script itself, nor the performances, but in the fact that the film came first, and a half century later is such a beloved classic that many, if not most, theater goers will already know every line. If you’re one of those, don’t be surprised if you find yourself mouthing “Put zee candle back!” or “Ovaltine, perhaps?” seconds before it actually comes out of the actors’ mouths. Like “Spamalot,” the musical stage version of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” the play is basically a reimagined version of the film.

Still, there’s lots to love in this frighteningly brilliant show. While Act I treads over familiar terrain, albeit with several new songs, Act II is where the real fun lives. Expect greatly expanded toe tapping musical numbers (can you say “Irving Berlin’s ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’”?), impressive dance sequences and howlingly funny lines and plot twists that were nowhere to be found in the film version.

It all adds up to a great end of the 2024 mainstage season at Bay Street. And remember, the next time you happen to overhear someone say, “Werewolf,” the only proper response is, “There, wolf.”

Rounding out the cast are ensemble members Savannah Cooper, Bradley William Gibbins, Brady Miller and Linda Neel, with Christina Emily Jackson and Cullen J. Zeno as swings. On the creative side, kudos to scenic and lighting designer Mike Billings, whose set pieces evoke the monochromatic tones of those 1930s monster movies with cleverly designed components, and projection designer Brad Peterson, who has recreated spot on title sequences from the original film. A nod, also, to music director Eric Svejcar and his fellow musicians, Teddy Motz, Ed Chiarello, Charles Clausen and Joel Levy, are responsible for performing all those fresh tunes that make a familiar story new again, and other members of the tech team, lighting programmer Ryan Marsh, costume designer Barbara Erin Delo, sound designer Joanna Lynne Staub and associate sound designer Alex Brock.

“Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein — The Musical” runs now through September 1 at Bay Street Theater with matinees on Wednesdays and Sundays and talkbacks on Tuesdays. Tickets start at $60 at baystreet.org, 631-725-9500 or at the box office on Long Wharf in Sag Harbor daily from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.