The Addams Family Musical
Nov. 21st, 2009 05:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eee1313Last night I went with the Scientist and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fava_bean to see The Addams Family. Now, while I was predisposed to like this musical (hello, look at the cast!), I didn't expect to REALLY like it as much as I did. SO. MUCH. FUN. If any of you Chicago folks want to see it, get tickets ASAP before the whole run sells out. And if any of you New Yorkers want to go come April, I'd highly recommend it. It's just FUN.
I will go on record here and now and say that I never really liked the TV show. I liked the movies a lot, and I LOVED the original cartoons, but the TV show never did it for me. I'm a Munsters girl, myself. But what I really, really liked about this show is how well they paid homage to the original Charles Addams cartoons, the TV show, and the movies. They had so much source material to build on, and they managed to acknowledge all of it while still creating a completely fresh story. Good job there, writers! Thank you for not just retreading a movie and putting some songs into it for the stage, like so many of the current screen-to-stage shows. (Why yes, Legally Blonde, I'm looking at you.) At least here the writers took something everyone knows and gave it a new spin while not losing sight of what made people love it in the first place.
The story takes place just as Wednesday turns 18 and becomes "an Addams woman." Soon after, she announces that she's in love, and Gomez and Morticia insist on inviting the boy and his parents over for dinner. Wednesday is torn, because this is the first time in her life she's ever felt love, and she's also terrified that her family will embarrass her in front of her boyfriend and his parents. Of course this happens, in part because Pugsley is jealous of the new boyfriend taking his sister away. He concocts a scheme to screw up their relationship, and the results go all awry with the kind of kookiness you'd expect from the Addamses.
This show has A LOT going for it. As of our show last night, the production had only been open one week and already it was really good. There are some issues. Just asaninnocent said to me, some of the songs could definitely be cut down. The first act alone is 1.5 hours, which made me glad I went to the bathroom before the show started. I don't know if I would have noticed the song length issue all that much had it not been mentioned to me (two coworkers who went on Thursday night had the same opinion). However, there were some scenes which just didn't gel for me in regards to the rest of the play. Fester acts for the most part as a narrator/emcee who talks directly with the audience. This part worked great, and the actor playing Fester is superb. However, in the actual play itself he's given a c-plot that just didn't work for me. It was funny and entertaining, but it didn't have any real reason to be there; none of it advanced the plot, or even gave his character any kind of conflict to resolve. That said, these are all MINOR quibbles on my part, because even when it was overly long, it was still entertaining as hell.
I will go on record as saying that once this show gets to Broadway, if it doesn't receive Tony noms for the set design and costumes I will be FLOORED. If anything, this show looks amazing. The entire show takes place either in the Addams Mansion or the yard outside, and they do a great job of resetting the house over and over and over to make it different in each scene. The core cast looks exactly as you'd expect, but the costumes on the chorus are awesome. The chorus is made up of the Addams ancestors, or ghosts, and their costumes range from Elizabethan courtier to Spanish conquistador. Really great. And then the puppetry! Dude, they worked in the squid from the old cartoons! THE SQUID! And she appears many times, which made me insanely happy.
The music is good. Some of the numbers are rather catchy, and this morning the Scientist couldn't get the "Full Disclosure" number from the end of act one out of his head. I can easily remember that one, as well as snippets of the tunes from Mortica's, Gomez's, and Wednesday's big numbers, as well as a few of the all-cast numbers. None of these songs are going to blow you out of the seat, but they're memorable enough all the way around to make the show a success in my book. Unfortunately the balance of sound between the orchestra and the singing was at times off, and it was hard to hear the singers over the orchestra. On one rather important song (Alice's big reveal song, foraninnocent's reference), neither myself or the Scientist could understand ANYTHING the actress was singing. She had a rather high soprano voice, and we just couldn't make any words out over the rest of the music. I don't know if it was the balance issue, or if the actress is just hard to understand when she sings, but there you are. Maybe just another bug to get worked out before heading to NYC.
As for the cast... I can't say enough about how GOOD they all are. Nathan Lane is absolutely hilarious. It's like Nathan Lane with his Nathan Lane-isms sounding like Antonio Banderas and acting like a horny teen around Morticia. He's just hilarious. Bebe Neuwirth makes a lovely Morticia. Her acting and comedic timing is impeccable. (Unfortunately some of the songs almost seem a bit too low for her alto voice, which is a shame. She's got so much power in her voice that when she hits the low notes and they're not as robust, it's noticeable. But that could be taken as a compliment, right?) The girl playing Wednesday, Krysta Rodriguez, is great as well. She's got a great voice, and manages to strike the right amount of sympathy with the right amount of Wednesday craziness. Kevin Chamberlain is Fester, and he's perfect. I was REALLY excited about seeing Terrence Mann on stage. I've been listening to him sing since I was in junior high, rocking out to Les Miz and Cats on my Walkman like the dork that I was (is?). He was minimally used in the first act (at least from the singing/dancing perspective), but he got his moments in act two and was GREAT. Despite being dressed like an old man, he can still really prove his mettle as a theater star.
In conclusion, I definitely recommend this. I think they're still tweaking as they go (I could swear the woman playing Grandma ad-libbed at one point and almost made Fester lose it on stage). If I had the money, I'd love to see this again before it closes in January, just to see what changes may have been made. But seeing as how I missed both Spamalot! and The Producers when they did their trial run in Chicago, I certainly wasn't going to miss this. And I'm really, really glad I didn't. This is probably the most fun musical I've seen in years, hands down.
fava_bean to see The Addams Family. Now, while I was predisposed to like this musical (hello, look at the cast!), I didn't expect to REALLY like it as much as I did. SO. MUCH. FUN. If any of you Chicago folks want to see it, get tickets ASAP before the whole run sells out. And if any of you New Yorkers want to go come April, I'd highly recommend it. It's just FUN.I will go on record here and now and say that I never really liked the TV show. I liked the movies a lot, and I LOVED the original cartoons, but the TV show never did it for me. I'm a Munsters girl, myself. But what I really, really liked about this show is how well they paid homage to the original Charles Addams cartoons, the TV show, and the movies. They had so much source material to build on, and they managed to acknowledge all of it while still creating a completely fresh story. Good job there, writers! Thank you for not just retreading a movie and putting some songs into it for the stage, like so many of the current screen-to-stage shows. (Why yes, Legally Blonde, I'm looking at you.) At least here the writers took something everyone knows and gave it a new spin while not losing sight of what made people love it in the first place.
The story takes place just as Wednesday turns 18 and becomes "an Addams woman." Soon after, she announces that she's in love, and Gomez and Morticia insist on inviting the boy and his parents over for dinner. Wednesday is torn, because this is the first time in her life she's ever felt love, and she's also terrified that her family will embarrass her in front of her boyfriend and his parents. Of course this happens, in part because Pugsley is jealous of the new boyfriend taking his sister away. He concocts a scheme to screw up their relationship, and the results go all awry with the kind of kookiness you'd expect from the Addamses.
This show has A LOT going for it. As of our show last night, the production had only been open one week and already it was really good. There are some issues. Just as
aninnocent said to me, some of the songs could definitely be cut down. The first act alone is 1.5 hours, which made me glad I went to the bathroom before the show started. I don't know if I would have noticed the song length issue all that much had it not been mentioned to me (two coworkers who went on Thursday night had the same opinion). However, there were some scenes which just didn't gel for me in regards to the rest of the play. Fester acts for the most part as a narrator/emcee who talks directly with the audience. This part worked great, and the actor playing Fester is superb. However, in the actual play itself he's given a c-plot that just didn't work for me. It was funny and entertaining, but it didn't have any real reason to be there; none of it advanced the plot, or even gave his character any kind of conflict to resolve. That said, these are all MINOR quibbles on my part, because even when it was overly long, it was still entertaining as hell.I will go on record as saying that once this show gets to Broadway, if it doesn't receive Tony noms for the set design and costumes I will be FLOORED. If anything, this show looks amazing. The entire show takes place either in the Addams Mansion or the yard outside, and they do a great job of resetting the house over and over and over to make it different in each scene. The core cast looks exactly as you'd expect, but the costumes on the chorus are awesome. The chorus is made up of the Addams ancestors, or ghosts, and their costumes range from Elizabethan courtier to Spanish conquistador. Really great. And then the puppetry! Dude, they worked in the squid from the old cartoons! THE SQUID! And she appears many times, which made me insanely happy.
The music is good. Some of the numbers are rather catchy, and this morning the Scientist couldn't get the "Full Disclosure" number from the end of act one out of his head. I can easily remember that one, as well as snippets of the tunes from Mortica's, Gomez's, and Wednesday's big numbers, as well as a few of the all-cast numbers. None of these songs are going to blow you out of the seat, but they're memorable enough all the way around to make the show a success in my book. Unfortunately the balance of sound between the orchestra and the singing was at times off, and it was hard to hear the singers over the orchestra. On one rather important song (Alice's big reveal song, for
aninnocent's reference), neither myself or the Scientist could understand ANYTHING the actress was singing. She had a rather high soprano voice, and we just couldn't make any words out over the rest of the music. I don't know if it was the balance issue, or if the actress is just hard to understand when she sings, but there you are. Maybe just another bug to get worked out before heading to NYC.As for the cast... I can't say enough about how GOOD they all are. Nathan Lane is absolutely hilarious. It's like Nathan Lane with his Nathan Lane-isms sounding like Antonio Banderas and acting like a horny teen around Morticia. He's just hilarious. Bebe Neuwirth makes a lovely Morticia. Her acting and comedic timing is impeccable. (Unfortunately some of the songs almost seem a bit too low for her alto voice, which is a shame. She's got so much power in her voice that when she hits the low notes and they're not as robust, it's noticeable. But that could be taken as a compliment, right?) The girl playing Wednesday, Krysta Rodriguez, is great as well. She's got a great voice, and manages to strike the right amount of sympathy with the right amount of Wednesday craziness. Kevin Chamberlain is Fester, and he's perfect. I was REALLY excited about seeing Terrence Mann on stage. I've been listening to him sing since I was in junior high, rocking out to Les Miz and Cats on my Walkman like the dork that I was (is?). He was minimally used in the first act (at least from the singing/dancing perspective), but he got his moments in act two and was GREAT. Despite being dressed like an old man, he can still really prove his mettle as a theater star.
In conclusion, I definitely recommend this. I think they're still tweaking as they go (I could swear the woman playing Grandma ad-libbed at one point and almost made Fester lose it on stage). If I had the money, I'd love to see this again before it closes in January, just to see what changes may have been made. But seeing as how I missed both Spamalot! and The Producers when they did their trial run in Chicago, I certainly wasn't going to miss this. And I'm really, really glad I didn't. This is probably the most fun musical I've seen in years, hands down.
