Producing a Gay Minstrel Show

https://www.camelottheatre.org/2014/producers.html

According to Theatre in America: Appraisal and Challenge, community theater is the most popularly accessible theatrical venue, but all too often settles for being a "diversion" or social gathering place, drifting away from the idea of theater as art. Camelot Theatre's current production of The Producers limits Camelot's accessibility not only by eschewing professionalism, but also by creating an exclusionary environment with clumsily homophobic jokes.

Camelot has seen great success with its Spotlight series, biographic pieces about historical pop singers that feature "a little bit of story and a lot of music." Unfortunately, that formula doesn't work for The Producers. Brooks uses Leo Bloom's character arch to soften the blow of his homophobic minstrelsy. That story is lost in amateurish acting and directing that pulls the punch that would legitimize this production as communally inclusive art.

The story's about Leo Bloom (Peter Wickliffe), and his journey to self-realization by forsaking his hellish job as an accountant for the fantasies of male virility offered by Broadway production. Max Bialystock (David King-Gabriel), the lately unfashionable Jewish producer, ushers him into this new life of tax fraud and buxom Swedish secretaries (Kelly Jean Hammond as Ulla). They license a neo-Nazi musical for their scheme to create a lucrative flog, and hire the worst director in town, the gay Roger DeBris (Don Matthews), only to see their fraud go up in flames when people love the play. Leo and Ulla skip town, letting Max take the fall, before returning for the reconciliatory "'Til Him."

That whole story hinges on Leo's journey. First he's a repressed accountant. Then he realizes his male virility with Broadway production and sex. But then he finds something else - love for Max. That's the story that needs to be told to make this compelling theater. But the story we see is "Leo's weirded out by Jews. Leo's weirded out by Nazis. Leo's weirded out by gays. Leo's weirded out by women." All of this, of course, is true initially, but the story ought to be about how Leo overcomes his prejudices. However, Leo doesn't get past this due to Wickliffe mugging his way through what ought to be a fraught journey, and director Livia Genise focuses on gay stereotypes (drag queens, the Village People, etc.). Most of this heteronormative prejudice can be chalked up to Brooksian satire (even though a straight man parodying the gays is suspect). But Brooks does soften the blow with a love song by a man for a man at the end of the play:          

"No one ever made me feel like someone

'Til him.

Life was really nothing but a glum one

'Til him.

My existence bordered on the tragic,

Always timid, never took a chance.

Then I felt his magic and my heart began to dance."

If you don't play this as "I came back because I love you," then the depictions of homosexuality in the play are all heavy-handed caricatures, and Leo's journey stops at becoming an alpha male like Max was. If you play it as a love song, then Leo's journey continues into the realization that he's bisexual. If you want a theater that includes the whole community, and not just the heterosexual mainstream, then just guess which story you want to tell.

Community theater not only needs to cultivate professionalism, but also to create a safe space for the whole community. The first means developing the technique to tell a compelling story, and the second means telling stories that embrace an inclusive world view. Camelot's The Producers is a good example of how not to do that. Instead of the courageous story about a young man realizing himself as a producer and bisexual, this Producers is simply a gay minstrel show.