Channel surfing on Halloween, I stumbled upon the old black and white TV show the Addams Family starring John Astin and Carolyn Jones. The episode in question is about Lurch falling in love and the minute or so scene where Lurch shows the adults his smile is funnier than the entire two and a half hours of the Addams Family on Broadway combined. Seriously.
The Addams Family isn’t TERRIBLE, it isn’t “Lestat” or the theatrical take on “High Society” (I still have nightmares about that one) but it is misjudged and mediocre, it looks cheap, like a haunted house ride, and the set design is drag.
Worst still, the story is a bad idea. The book is by Rick Elice of “Jersey Boys” who will get lots more work but is really not all that. A lousy concept in which they age the Addams daughter Wednesday five years and have her fall in love with a straight. You can tell from the start where it is going and it really slows down from time to time to get there.
Around that basic story, Morticia is worried about growing old (I thought she was a vampire), , the prospective in-laws are visiting from squaresville, Uncle Fester has fallen in love with the Moon (don’t ask), oh and, both creepier and kookier than you will ever be Wednesday’s masochistic little brother Pugsley pines for her sister to torture him again. I’m not kidding,. Really. That might be the single perviest concept a family musical has ever come up with.
King of Broadway Nathan Lane has come a long way since “Guys And Dolls” and it has been all down hill. The last two shows I’ve seen Nathan in, a David Mamet play and a diabolical The Odd Couple have been bad enough and perhaps it is time the stageworld leaving Nathan to bear the weight of the Addams family as Gomez. He isn’t awful but he isn’t good either. The problem is we have seen this mugging and overacting way too often. Bebe Neuwirth is so under used, she is like a bench player in baseball, coming around for an inning once every coupla games. Wednesday is much more important to the show, indeed it is practically the Gomez and Wednesday show. “Happy/Sad” -a father daughter moment, is a high light true but Krysta Rodriguez, while a talented enough girl, can’t shine Bebe’s shoes so why am I stuck looking at summerstock when I could watch the woman who gave us half of Chicago.
The music is nothing much either. Andrew Lippa hasn’t written one memorable song for the production. By the way, there isn’t one memorable song in “Wicked” either. I guess the new Broadway considers hits a secondary factor to spectacle.
Oh, and there is no spectacle.The stage designer is a doggo el doggo that doesn’t do anything at all: neither scary, nor funny, it is simply bland. You’d think they’d discount their prices when they are spending are so little.
What else? The jokes are occasionally, usually chuckly, the pacing is off, the set piece at the end of the interminable first act should be taken out and shot and god knows what they are gonna do when Nathan’s contract is up.
Finally, they don’t sing the TV theme of the show and for good reason, it woulds blown this trifle right off the stage.