The Producers, Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre. Mel Brooks’s stage adaptation of his 1968 film reverts to the anything-for-a-laugh, politically incorrect musicals of its 1959 setting, flaunting lots of offensive stereotypes, especially of gays and Germans. With its unapologetically melodious score and Eisenhower-era evening wear, this retro revel revolves around shyster producers who hit pay dirt when they least expect or want to. Its fulsome tribute to Broadway and the dreamer-schemers behind the producers’ neo-Nazi, lavender-hued pastiche is catnip to Brooks, a natural-born musical-comedy showman who found fame in Hollywood. Who else would have contrasted a cooing chorus of Nazi-loving pigeons with a kick line of little old ladies on walkers? Who else would have turned the conquest of Europe into a Ziegfeld production number?
