ZERO SCORES BIG WITH SPOT ON PERFORMANCE
by Bill Hirschman (July 3, 2008)

A volcano explodes nightly in the Broward Stage Door theater, spewing flame and lava over the audience without benefit of special effects. Early on, Jim Brochu incarnates the wit, volatility and sensitivity of Zero Mostel but Brochu becomes a force of nature at the end of the first act as Mostel rages at the obscene damage inflicted by the 1950s blacklist.

Best known today by a younger generation for the film The Producers, older generations revere Mostel's iconic stage performances in Fiddler on the Roof, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and as the man who morphed into a wild animal without any makeup in Rhinoceros.

As both playwright and actor, Brochu has nailed the essence of this difficult but brilliant chameleon who could be tender and terrifying, playful and combative, all in the space a few seconds. He captures --- if not photographically reproduces -- the righteously angry Mostel who rants and rails with razor-barbed wit, a profligately improvisational mind, an endlessly malleable face and a dancer's grace in an elephant's body.

Yet in the second act, he rivets the audience with quietly intense stories about how his career almost ended with a crippling bus accident or how he had difficulty opening in Fiddler because its plotline echoed his own parents disowning him for marrying outside the faith.

Brochu not only has Mostel's mountainous frame, his beady eyes, puffy beard and slicked back hair, but he has mastered Mostel's cadences and intonations. With an eye on Broadway next season (don't they always), Brochu has been working on this show since 2006 with director Piper Laurie (yes, that Piper Laurie). Occasionally, the material is not quite so rollicking or compelling, but even then Brochu and Mostel are terrific company.