By Jackie Demaline
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Lewis Stadlen (left) and Don Stephenson star as Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom. PAUL KOLNICK

Bialystock and Bloom put the capital "B" back into Broadway touring as The Producers. The production, continuing at the Aronoff through Nov. 10, is every bit as Tony worthy as the record-breaking original that has taken Broadway by storm since the day it opened in spring 2001.

Be prepared to stand and cheer while wearing an ear-to-ear grin. This is new-fangled, old-fashioned Broadway at its best.

A delirious musical send-up of stage biz, Mel Brooks adapts his demented film scenario from the 1960s. King of flops Max Bialystock (Lewis Stadlen) and schlub accountant Leo Bloom (Don Stephenson) come up with an inspired plan to make an illegal fortune.

All they have to do is bilk their investors by creating the worst show in the history of Broadway, and what better than the neo-Nazi extravaganza Springtime for Hitler?

Their quest sends them hop-clopping with Franz Liebkind (the wonderful Fred Applegate) and his goose-stepping pigeons and on to the pink-and-purple apartment of gay no-talent director Roger De Bris, a fabulous comic turn by Lee Roy Reams. On opening night Tuesday, dance captain Alan Bennett stepped into another big comic role, Roger De Bris' "common law assistant" Carmen Ghia, he of the hissing delivery and the kind of turns that dislocate hips. The audience loved him.

The Producers is the rare show that gets everything right. The jokes, verbal and visual, come fast and furiously. The script is rudely funny, the costumes are wickedly funny, and the production numbers are inspired, putting equal emphasis on "musical" and "comedy."

How do you top little old ladies in lavender and lace tap-dancing with their walkers? With a Ziegfeld salute heavy on beer and brats.

For all that, The Producers is one of the smartest musicals in a decade, chemistry plays a vital role.

Stuffed with riotously politically incorrect lyrics and explosions of comedy, The Producers is always a terrific piece of theater, but it's at its best with a well-matched Max and Leo at its center. And what a delicious surprise in this road production, at the center is a heart.

On Broadway, Nathan Lane gave one of those rare, stuff-of-Broadway-legend performances. If you saw it and think there's nothing more to see, I'm happy to report there is.

Mr. Stadlen does the impossible. He manages to push Mr. Lane out of your mind as he channels Jackie Gleason, Jimmy Durante, Groucho Marx into a Max that is his own, and he does right by the second act pinnacle "Betrayed."

He's a warmer Max than Mr. Lane, and his performance flavors the entire production, no bad thing hundreds of miles from Times Square, where we lead kinder and gentler lives.

Mr. Stadlen is perfectly matched by Mr. Stephenson, who is a charmer and a swell song-and-dance man, winning the audience over with "I Wanna Be a Producer."

He's downright adorable as he snivels his way from mouse to man and gets the girl as his reward.

And what a girl she is. The Producers is set in the 1950s, and Mel Brooks embraces Borscht Belt gags, the glory days of the casting couch and showgirls who stretch a tape measure in all the right places.

Angie Schworer plays Ulla, the ooh-la-la Swedish secretary and soon-to-be Springtime star. Ms. Schworer displays both an impeccable comic sense and legs that go on forever. Her "When You Got It, Flaunt It" is a show-stopper.

After a first act finale starring Bialystock's little old lady investors (Max works hard for his money), the second act is largely devoted to the boggling musical-within-a-musical Springtime for Hitler in which Mr. Reams brings down the house.

The Producers, through Nov. 10, Fifth Third Bank Broadway in Cincinnati, Aronoff Center, 241-7469.

E-mail jdemaline@enquirer.com