We rarely get over to the Great White Way for musicals because the cost is way, way more than you want to dish out for what is usually an extravaganza of mediocrity. But I was mildly curious about Mel Brooks’s new musical adaptation of Young Frankenstein, if only because when you’re 11 or 12 it’s pretty much one of the greatest films ever made, and in my opinion the film has aged fairly well. So, maybe it would make a fun musical?

Doesn’t sound like it:

There is one truly exhilarating number, though you have to sit through most of the show before it arrives. It comes when Dr. Frankenstein introduces his show-business-trained creature to the world by having him perform Irving Berlin’s “Puttin’ On the Ritz.” Ms. Stroman pulls out all the stops (and most of the usual contents of her bag of dance tricks) for this one, evoking a catalog of top-hat styles. But what really makes it fly is Mr. Hensley’s evocation of the monster’s pleasure in what he’s doing. This big galoot of a mannequin is being seduced by the singular joys of musical comedy and loving it. For the first and only time in the show, so are we.

This jolt of feeling isn’t enough to erase the impression that from its opening number, “Young Frankenstein” has never stopped screeching at you. This means that: (a) it has soon worn out its voice, and (b) it leaves you with a monster-size headache.

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