Addams Family 3-31-10 Quick Review

I saw The Addams Family on March 31 evening show. I'm not an avid theatre-goer because I live on the other side of the country, but every few years, I take off and see five or six shows in a week. This past week, The Addams Family was one of those shows.

Song List:
Overture
When You're An Addams
Pulled
Where Did We Go Wrong
One Normal Night
Morticia
What If
Full Disclosure
Waiting
Full Disclosure Part 2
-Intermission-
Entr'acte
Just Around the Corner
The Moon and Me
Happy/Sad
Crazier Than You
Let'a Not Talk About Anything Else But Love
In the Arms
Live Before We Die
Tango de Amor
Move Toward the Darkness

While the show is nowhere near perfect, it was an extremely enjoyable night.

The opening number is TERRIFIC. It really set the evening off to a wonderful start. The cast is absolutely outstanding.
Nathan truly carries the show with the best lines and the most action. Bebe is perfect for Morticia, though she's not given much to do in the first act.
The first act is absolutely hilarious and had the audience in stitches. The show was stopped a few times because of the unending laughter- especially after Jackie's "I just peed" line.
If the entire show would be like Act 1, it would be an undeniable hit. However, the second act is a disappointment following.
While it is still okay, it feels like it's not completely finished. It is far too ballad heavy and doesn't make a lot of sense. I was not a fan of Fester's moon song, or "In the Arms". Neither one made much sense, and I didn't find anything funny within them.
One hilarious part was toward the end of the show, Bebe seriously started cracking up at one of Nathan's lines and had the audience roaring.

It still needs work, but out of five shows, this was the most fun for my family and I. I could definitely see this show running a few years.
I am quite possibly the worst review writer. My thoughts are random and chaotic, so if you would like to know about anything specific or have any question about the show, please post on here and I will answer!

Misha, when I saw the show in March Nathan didn't come out but everyone else did.

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Ok thanks. I've heard a lot of mixed reviews but I have like every show I've seen so I think this will be fine.

I saw the show in Chicago and really enjoyed Fester's "Moon" number. I hope it does well on Broadway (I'm sure it will what with the star-power and brand recognition behind it, but I suppose you never know).

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Quick question- is the ending (Move Toward the Darkness) still the same as it was in Chicago? Is the song the same/the way the show ends? I felt it was really rushed in Chicago and felt like an attempt to tie up all loose ends to a happy ending in the last few minutes.

Also, is the tango still with all the ancestors, and if so, what are people's thoughts on that? I really hope Bebe and Nathan are highlighted, because I felt they were definitely lost in the ensemble.

Thanks! One day till opening...

Mike3,

I've read a lot of criticism of the show and though I disagree with a great deal of it, I can usually see where the critiquers were coming from and so I just resolve to be of a dissenting minority opinion.

I suppose it doesn't really matter much to anyone except me, but several of your comments were legit head-scratchers for me:

-- most notably, that you thought the set looked cheap and flimsy. First, I couldn't disagree more. But more to the point, even among those who hate every written, staging, choreographic and performed element in the show, so many of them seem to still recognize (even if reluctanly) the beauty of the set design (and some recognize the costumes too). Even of those who have critiqued how unwieldy they believe the physical production to be, I can't recall many (if any) who found it second-rate in terms of its actual quality. Im sure they'll now identify themselves and prove me wrong, but this note just struck me as so wildly divergent from even some of the harshest critics' issues (as well as my own affinity for the design).

-- you seem to be suggesting that the design should be more slick and hi-tech, yet you clearly are familiar with Mssrs. McDermott and Lynch and therefore likely know that they have a history of working with decidedly lo-tech effects. Yes, I suppose they could have automated everything (though in the case of the staircases, given what they have to be able to do within the design, I'm actually not certain that would have been possible) or shunned the concept of a phased unit set in favor of many more individual settings, but then they could have just hired a David Rockwell and I don't think the design would have been nearly as intricate, interesting and legitimately beautiful (even as slick as it might then have been).

-- of all the "in-ones" that you could take issue with, I'm baffled by your choosing the first one. It sets up Fester as the Narrator of sorts and therefore made perfect sense to me in the tradition of any number of age-old musicals of yesteryear. It also gives Fester the somewhat "vaudevillian" feel which the writers seem to want us to associate with him. The nifty red curtain is then used to create little windows of playing spaces, not unlike the vignettes that Addams himself used in his single-panel cartoons, until the transition back into the park to pick up the Beinekes and then the transition into the Main Hall, which for me at least, was incredibly dramatic and exciting to watch. To have transitioned directly into the mansion with some mechanical wizardry? THAT would have been so much more UNinteresting to me. Now all of that said, the "in one" with the cross of Morticia and Pugsley on the bed and the "in one" at the end during "Move Toward the Darkness" were far more annoying to me as too-obvious excuses for scene changes.

-- re: "Happy/Sad", no, I don't wonder why they don't move more. It's a tender ballad sung by a father to his daughter. As I recall, Nathan did a cross or two during the number but had there been more "business" it would have been distracting and drawn focus from what I personally feel is the strongest song in the show. It certainly doesn't make sense for them to move upstage to the swing after Gomez has just gotten up to intercept Wednesday as she tries to run away. That's not to say that there weren't a few too many straight lines on stage at other times -- I can partially agree with that. But this number is not one of them that needed *more* staging for me.

Obviously, you didn't care for the show and I realize you probably have many more specific criticisms. I wouldn't be foolish enough to try and dissuade you of your overall opinion of the production. Just happens that the ones you detail in your post were particularly puzzling, and in some cases unique (at least to me), so I decided to chime in. To each his/her own, as always.

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