The Addams Family

It took me a year to get to THE ADDAMS FAMILY and I can’t say the wait was worth it. What is astonishing is that this was a musical that was flat out panned and yet, it is still running a year later. I am convinced that it’s the title. America has had a love affair with these characters ever since Charles Addams first brought them to life in the New Yorker. The cult classic TV series insured their place in pop culture––in reruns it was one of my favorite shows next to THE MUNSTERS. In the 1990s we got the big screen version and a brilliant sequel, ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES with a screenplay by Paul Rudnick. Perhaps Paul Rudnick should have been brought on board to do the book instead of Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, for he proved that a story could be told that harnessed all the one frame jokes that are typical of the original cartoons. What we get on Broadway is a second rate LA CAGE AUX FOLLES, but instead of the unconventional family being gay, they are the Addams family. Instead of the other family being conservative politicians, they are simply “normal.” The boy and the girl wanting to get married in this scenario are Wednesday Addams (Rachel Potter making her Broadway debut) and the normal boy she met in the park, Lucas (Jesse Swenson from SPRING AWAKENING). Wednesday tries to make the family create a “normal” dinner party for her boyfriend’s family. Of course it all goes wrong, but everyone learns (all too quickly) to accept each other’s differences.

There are many half funny lines, a few really good ones, but mostly the book is trite. Puppet master, Basil Twist, creates most of the magic with Cousin It, an octopus and effects surrounding Uncle Fester flying to the moon. The overall design is a delight thanks to Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch, but it is a wonder that this creative team also directed the production. Not that the staging is poor, but it is generally the case that the directors and choreographer (Sergio Trujillo) are as instrumental in the creation of the final material of a musical as the book writers and Andrew Lippa the composer would be. The authors are not the only ones too blame for this bland and pointless entertainment.

Now as Gomez, Roger Rees makes a fine head of the haunted household and he seems to be having a grand time. Bebe Neuwirth continues on as Morticia and she looks magnificent, dances well, though she hasn’t been challenged, and she has begun to sing with a vibrato that sounds like a Model T Ford starting up. Rachel Potter sings Mr. Lippa’s songs with pleasing power, while Adam Riegler as Pugsley sings with such unpleasant swallowed tones that it is a wonder he was cast. There are many boys on Broadway right now that could have made Mr. Lippa’s music sound much better. Brad Oscar is perfect as Uncle Fester, giving it a strong dose of Jackie Coogan, which is just as well. Heidi Blickenstaff shines as Alice Beineke with the best voice in the show, while Adam Grupper is merely sufficient as Mal Beineke, though this has as much to do with the shallowness of the role. It is difficult for any actor, no matter how good they usually are, to make Broadway magic out of mediocre material and that is the best you can say for THE ADDAMS FAMILY––mediocre.

On the other hand, in secondary licensing, the show will sell well. The high school market will eat this up. They’ll take a look at it based on the title alone and it just may be the show to entice reticent boys to join the drama clubs of America. The large group of teenagers sitting behind me seemed to love the production, while the “adults” sitting around me barely cracked a chuckle. Obviously there is an audience for this show as is, but it is just too bad that such a good idea turned out to be so disappointing.