Neat and Sweet
The critics had been sharpening their knives for The Addams Family for months, so it
shouldn’t have been such a surprise that they eviscerated this harmless,
mediocre show. Don’t get me wrong—The
Addams Family is not a great musical. But there’s nothing so dreadful in it
to be worthy of the scorn that critics have gleefully heaped upon it since it
opened.
No doubt they were expecting the dark and morbid New Yorker
cartoons, which the creators publicly announced they would be returning to for
the look and feel of the show. That they did (the fabulous costumes and sets
are from Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch), but Marshall Brickman and Rick
Elice’s book reeks of the ’60s TV show. That’s not necessarily a bad thing (the
films also claimed to have reached back to the original cartoons, but the plots
don’t really hold up in the recounting), but it certainly comes as a
disappointment to those who are expecting something different. The problem with
The Addams Family is that
expectations ran high, and the show itself is unable to live up to them.
Among those expectations was that Andrew Lippa would
contribute a score that would be as ooky and kooky as Vic Mizzy’s theme song to
the television show, but Lippa’s specialty is power pop, not idiosyncrasy. Thus
we get an older Wednesday (Krysta Rodriguez), pigtails gone, belting out
numbers about falling in love with the normal Lucas (a solid Wesley Taylor)
that sound like generic, cut songs from Legally
Blonde. Only the second act number “Just Around the Corner,” sung by Bebe
Neuwirth as Morticia, scores in the gleefully morbid department, while the
rousing first act finale, “Full Disclosure” would feel entirely at home in an
episode of the TV show. The rest are serviceable, at best.
Neuwirth is as pitch-perfect as imagined (who else could
play the pale, languid Morticia with the correct amount of deadpan?), but
Nathan Lane is a disaster as Gomez. Forgoing his Spanish accent for long
stretches in order to better sell his Borscht Belt jokes as Nathan Lane, he
also helpfully keeps audiences awake during Lippa’s dull songs for Gomez by
singing flatly. Kevin Chamberlain shamelessly steals Jackie Coogan’s
performance as Uncle Fester; Jackie Hoffman is fabulous if you like Jackie
Hoffman, but those who don’t will not find a reason to start here; Adam Riegler
can do little with Pugsley, who’s been written as desperately needy; and Terrence
Mann and Carolee Carmello are mostly wasted as Lucas’ “normal” parents, though Carmello
nails the suburban matron wandering into the Addams’ world of gloom. Zachary
James, however, is almost impossibly good as the mostly silent Lurch (until he
must crack open his mouth to sing a feel-good Lippa song).
The clash between the two families that propels the first
act dissipates completely in the limp second, as characters are separated only
to be reunited for the rousing finale, “Move Toward the Darkness,” the most
upbeat song about being pessimistic imaginable. Every generation gets the
Addamses they deserve, I guess, and if that means that their Broadway
incarnation is heavy on feel-good audience rousers and light on darkness, then
we, who have embraced Mamma Mia! (and
what would Morticia have made of that?),
have gotten what we deserve: a generic, professional show about how utterly
normal it is to be odd.
Open run, The Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, 205 W. 46th St. (betw.
Broadway & 8th Ave.), 212-307-4100; $51.50–$136.50.