“Young Frankenstein” is an unapologetically vulgar, pandering and puerile musical. The first slapstick knee-to-the-crotch moment comes less than half way into the first song. In one number, a winsome lass fondles a necklace of sausages while singing about the joys of “a roll in the hay.”
The Mercury Theater Chicago’s staging of the musical (music and lyrics by Mel Brooks, book by Thomas Meehan) embraces the camp, the bawdiness and the ridiculousness with cheery verve.
