Teachout: Why The Producers Doesn’t Have Legs

So why is The Producers fading on Broadway? Terry Teachout believes he knows: “To see ‘The Producers’ is to be immersed in that older style of comedy, and for anyone born before 1960, the experience will be as nostalgic as a trip to the county fair. Somehow I doubt that was what Mr. Brooks had in mind, though. My guess is that he still thinks it’s titillating, even shocking, to put swishy Nazis on stage. It’s no accident that he hasn’t made a movie for years and years: Broadway is one of the last places in America where he could draw a crowd with that kind of humor, and it’s not an especially young crowd, either.”