Yours truly spent Thanksgiving Eve (yes, I am making up a new holiday) at the historic Oriental Theatre for a viewing of the much anticipated Addams Family musical. The show is previewing in Chicago until January 10th where it will make its move to Broadway. The following review may oust me from the world of musical theatre but I have to confess I thought the show was a disappointment.
As a fan of both the show and films, I was very excited to see how this beloved Goth family would translate in a musical. In order to avoid the trap of creating a continuous narrative, the producers decided to base the musical around the cartoon created by Charles Addams. This decision morphed the characters enough to distance them from the family portrayed onscreen thus creating a disconnect with part of the audience. All of the characters were watered down which caused them to lose some of their kookiness.
The curtain opens to reveal the family singing and dancing in their cemetery. Wednesday, played by Krysta Rodriguez, is a woman now and must participate in the traditional Addams family right of passage. Although she loves her family, she is plagued by the new found feelings of love she has for a "normal" boy from school. The stage is set for the two families to meet for dinner and predictably mayhem ensues.
The show is a staggering two and half hours long featuring a bevy of forgettable love songs and an equally weak plot. I get musicals rarely have an amazingly profound storyline but at the very least the music should be good. The Addams Family musical failed on both fronts. Thankfully they had the cast snap along to the theme song from the show which was one of the few standout moments of this production.
Nathan Lane is the equivalent of Broadway gold. However, his flamboyance did not translate well to the character of Gomez. It was over-the-top and there were a lot of unnecessary pauses for audience laughter. In my humble opinion, no one played the role better than Raul Julia. As for the visually stunning Bebe Neuwirth, she seemed like the perfect choice to play Morticia. Sadly, she can't carry a tune which doesn't fair well for a musical. Granted she is a classically trained dancer but given her flat, monotone voice sitting through her numbers became quite dreadful.
The standouts, as far as I'm concerned, were Grandmamma and Fester (Jackie Hoffman and Kevin Chamberlin respectively). Both characters served as the comic relief. Fester's character, however, was written into an intangible story line that thankfully led to the most memorable song and dance number of the show. For the most part, the supporting actors outshined the stars which added to the disappointment.
This, my friends, was no Spamalot. I have to confess that I was disappointed and after much review can say the sets were my favorite part of the show (they were pretty amazing).The production wasn't terrible but lacked a fair amount of standout moments. Until they work out the kinks, I'd skip the show for now and maybe check it out during its second run. It wouldn't kill them to incorporate MC Hammer's theme song either.
