Peter D. Kramer
The show went on at Tappan Zee High School last weekend, minus the oversized Nazi flags.
But there were still swastikas on stage in "The Producers" — both on armbands, and in a production number where the cast danced in the form of a giant swastika, a la Busby Berkeley.
A controversy arose before Friday's opening night after a student posted a photo on Facebook of oversized Nazi flags flying over the Tappan Zee stage. Concerned parents then met with administrators, saying they were offended that a symbol of hate would be seen at a high school.
The administration ordered director Ed Clinton to remove the flags, which were to fly at the end of the production number, "Springtime for Hitler."
"The Producers," based on Mel Brooks' 1968 film, tells the story of two Broadway producers who search for a surefire Broadway flop, in the hopes of bilking little old ladies out of their nest eggs. The flop they settle on, "Springtime for Hitler," is a valentine to the Nazi leader, written by a leiderhosen-wearing follower played by student Jarrett Morley.
Morley's father, Joe, saw the show last weekend and said Clinton read a long disclaimer before the performance.
"It basically said that the play is about two producers producing a parody and that the students and the faculty don't support any of the ideas or concepts of The Third Reich or Adolf Hitler and this is simply used for comic reasons."
Morley said members of the audience laughed at the disclaimer, because they all knew what they were seeing.
"It was like: 'Are you kidding me? Of course we understand. Don't insult my intelligence. Do you really think you have to go through this?'" Morley said.
Morley said Brooks takes aims at all kinds of groups in the musical.
"There are numerous things in the show that are politically incorrect," Morley said. "To single this one out seems ludicrous."
Joe Morley's father, Eric, was a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp who saw the Broadway production of "The Producers" before his death.
Morley said the show didn't suffer for the lack of the flags, "but if they had taken out the swastika armbands, then it might have suffered."
They also didn't cut the end of the "Springtime for Hitler" production number when "the entire onstage ensemble gets together in the shape of a giant swastika and rotates on stage."
While there was no mirror above the stage to show the giant spinning swastika, as there had been on Broadway, "enough of the audience got what they were doing that it got a laugh," he said.
"The only person in the show who actually plays a Nazi was Jarrett, whose grandfather was a Holocaust survivor," Morley said. "And no one in his family had a problem with the play."
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