Addams Family Review 1/05/10 -Slight Spoilers- — Page 3

I saw the show on Jan 9th and enjoyed it, despite its obvious flaws.

The biggest drawbacks for me were:


***SPOILERS BLAH BLAH BLAH***


Half the score is forgettable with Full Disclosure and Second Banana as the most obvious candidates for being replaced entirely. The melodies ad lyrics are wildly incongruous with the characters and scenes. I've never been a Lippa fan, but I really went in with a positive attitude that he was chosen for this project for a very good reason. Unfortunately, my opinion hasn't changed much for the better. To me, his songs tend to have a generic quality lacking the underpinning of scene, setting, occasion or cohesion (especially his Wild Party score). Vaudeville works great with Fester as his character is often associated with the corny stereotypical Vaudevillian clown, but it doesn't work with a family dinner (coupled with Rent's La Vie Boheme table choreography...I still don't understand what that was about...was it a spoof and if it was, why was it the sole Broadway musical spoof in the show?) nor does it work as Morticia's second act big solo number. And why did the Passion and Love song (or whatever it's called) leave me humming Wild and Reckless from Drat! The Cat!? It's sad that I can recall a forgotten song from a forgetten flop I've only heard two or three times over a Lane/Neuwirth duet in a big splashy sold-out musical based on The Addams Family?

Morticia's subplot is completely at odds with her established character. I get trying to do something new with Wednesday's character (her teen "coming of age" was a smart idea, but not well-executed or fully fleshed out) as a catalyst for reintroducing the family in a new way to audiences, but there is far more there that could be mined in terms of plot without having to compromise the integrity of more stable characters in the story.

The first act needs to establish the popular eccentricities of the family (i.e. the indelible trademark of the entire franchise) before launching into Wednesday's newly acquired weakness and introducing the other family.

If the new family is portrayed as being so quirky, where's the big contrast? While Caramello's character is sort of cute, it really needs to be dialed back a bit if they want to establish her as a "them" in this story. It doesn't help that her son already looks deranged enough to play an Addams relative.

The design is fabulous and I enjoyed some of the songs with Pulled and Let's Not Talk About Anything Else But Love being the standouts for me. The Fester material totally worked for me and his song to the moon was a refreshing new take on an old "in-one" musical comedy character song. The cast were uniformly strong with the two standouts being Hoffman and Chamberlain (both will probably earn Tony noms) with Hoffman being the biggest standout performance of the evening, judging from the audience reaction. With such a relatively small role, she pulled the comedic rug out from under both Lane and Neuwirth and bowed the biggest ovation of the night (including a lengthy ovation for one line which stopped the show). Right now, I would place money on Hoffman for winning the Tony if that performance was any indication of what's to come to Broadway, despite what others think about Lansbury having it in the bag yet again.

And yes, Virginia, there is a story and a plot. The show is not a revue. And the audience reaction was far from tepid the night I went, which was during the worst winter storm of the season thus far. It was quite possibly the most enthusiastic response I've seen to any show in Chicago in the last eight years starting with the opening tableau. Did every number and joke land? Nope. But the ones that did, struck gold.

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I concur with you about the audience reaction Mister Matt. I believe I saw it the same night as Helene (Friday, correct me if I'm wrong) and I've never seen a happier audience. I was in a box seat and got to see some fantastic reactions with laughter and applause stopping the show multiple times. I also witnessed them leaping to their feet at curtain. So I feel safe to say that much of the audience really enjoyed the show and did not leave with an unhappy face.

I love how innocent you tried to make your post, like we never listened to your opinion. Someone posted asking about the show and you posted a link to a youtube video of cats screaming and said HERE YOU GO! That's beyond "constructive criticism".

NOW you've seen the show P? But when? AFTER you've posted at least two dozen "criticisms" of it? And how? Did you visit my hometown and not say hi?

And Matt I agree with much of what you say- but "Full Disclosure" and "Second banana" both got HUGE ovations then night I saw it- I'd say "SB" (that's for YOU, p!) was probably the best-received number of the night. Whether it stinks or not you don't cut one of the most popular songs....

PGenre -- "vicious bile"? If that's not the pot calling the kettle black. You are the one who has used the most extreme and nasty language in critiquing this show and anyone who dares to like it.

Also, I return to one of my original questions: since the show has never been recorded or published, how is it that you were oh-so-familiar with both without having seen the show? Since that defies logic, I would think you would want to set the record straight if only to have even the slightest shred of credibility.

MisterMatt -- bravo for your review. I found even a little bit more to like in the show than you did, but your critiques are well-expressed and reasoned. Perhaps you can give Pgenre a few lessons.

Helene -- as I recall, the balcony at the Oriental seats at least 300 or so. So if they readily had seats available in the balcony (as well as partial view and the occasional better seats for certain dates), that in and of itself suggests that they had NOT sold 90% of the tickets in advance. If you meant that 90% of the seats that could reasonably be considered "good" had been sold in advance, that is another matter and I think I would agree with that. But it still demonstrates that they had a fair number of seats to sell AFTER the reviews came out in order to achieve the percentage capacity record reported by Variety.

JoeKV -- I actually wouldn't be surprised to see them cut "Second Banana" even with the ovation it received. To me, the ovation was more for Bebe than for the song or its staging. So many of the reviews suggest that they want to see Bebe dance more (though with her artificial hips, who knows if she can?) and the number is an integral part of a plot point that many have quibbled with. So I wouldn't be surprised to see it cut, or perhaps expanded and/or adapted to be more along the lines of what she expresses in the reprise about being second banana to her children (rather than second banana as a desired beauty).

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Frankly, with Jerry Zaks' creative output the way it is lately, what'll happen with Addams Family is anyone's guess. He came in to doctor The Capeman. Didn't go so well, did it?

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