There's a tiny bit of cleansing in the Boulder's Dinner Theatre production of The Producers, trading in one four-letter word for a Yiddish one that means the exact same thing.

For the most part, though, this staging not only faithfully recreates the Broadway hit's anarchic raunchiness, it also comes up with several innovations of its own.

Among them is returning for characterization not to Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, but to Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder from the original 1968 movie. As the corrupt producer Max Bialystock, Wayne Kennedy is a marvel, cementing his title as the area's best impersonator of yiddishkeit. From his first entrance with a booming voice and a combover that forms devil horns on his scalp, Kennedy owns the room. His Max is joyous, amoral and freshly hilarious.

Kennedy is paired with his longtime co-worker, Scott Beyette, as Leo Bloom, the timid accountant sucked into Max's vision. Beyette gives Leo a whine like air escaping from a nasal balloon. He's a poignant shlemiel as he nearly whispers "I can't do it," and a spry-footed dancer. Together, they make a true team.

A Swedish bombshell, of course, does as much to bring Bloom to manhood as Bialystock does. Zina Mercil doesn't quite have the belt of other Ullas, but she presents the object of lust as a statuesque sunbeam, her vivid personality reaching throughout the theater.

Stellar casting abounds in this group. Brian Norber is a revelation of comic extravagance as Roger Debris, the director so gay he doesn't prance, he leaps. His performance is full of camp and bite, rolled R's and absurd facial contortions. Brian Jackson offers a kind of fresh-faced innocence as the Nazi playwright Franz Liebkind, strapping and nutty as he indoctrinates the crooked producers.

This production doesn't come near the design extravagance and comedy of Susan Stroman's work on Broadway, but it's a phenomenal undertaking for a dinner theater a fifth of the size (and far less a budget). Director Michael Duran recreates Broadway images where he can (don't miss the Hitler-heiling pigeons) and comes up with new ones where he can't, guided through a tricky set by designer Amy Campion (her design of Roger Debris' home is a particularly funny pink tribute to Tom of Finland).

Linda Morken's work is an eye-popper - see if you can count how many costume changes there are in this show, and just how quickly they're being done.

In The Producers, it's Bloom and Ulla who fall in love, but the real romance is between Bialystock and Bloom. Beyette and Kennedy make it a love story worth rooting for and laughing with your heart until the moment of cardiac arrest.

The Producers

* Grade: A

* When and where: Through March 7 at Boulder's Dinner Theatre, 5501 Arapahoe Ave.

* Cost: $35 and up

* Information: 303-449-6000, bouldersdinner

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