Jerry Zaks brought on for Addams Family — Page 3

orangedress, I love Tony Walton's designs but a quick check of IBDB confirms he has never, ever directed on Broadway. I think what I was trying to say is that "The Adams Family" requires and deserves a specialist as director. A comedy specialist. Jerry Zaks or Mike Nichols come to mind readily and one of the two was hired.

When all is said and done, much like the work of Edward Gory, "Adams Family" already has a superb visual tone and language (which has readily been adopted from what I can see.) But to bring a 15 million dollar BOOK musical (not an extravaganza like Shockhead Peter or, yes, The Lion King) into New York and to face Ben Brantley, you better have one friggin' funny show, with a confident, HILARIOUS libretto and witty lyrics, or you will get slaughtered.

If I had invested in this show (and I am not an investor) I would have been alarmed at the choice of director (but then, I suppose, they were in from the beginning so what do I know?)

At any rate, I will take your advice and read up on the designer/directors and maye I'll learn a thing or two...

Thanx

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On Lion King, Oken had the watchful eye of Thomas Schumacher and the protective umbrella of Disney Theatrical making sure Taymor's vision worked for Disney audiences. The synthesis of Taymor's vision and Disney's "magic"--plus the residual magic from the movie--made Lion King a lasting theatrical event.

The storyline they inherited from the movie was so strong that all Taymor had to do was add her brand of imaginative spectacle to the Circle of Life structure. The comedy is only comic relief. She added immeasurably to the movie experience, but had she gotten in the way of it, Disney and Schumacher would have swooped in and protected their franchise.

Here, Oken and the other producers were flying blind without a strong archtypal story. They had no Disney machinery or crowd-pleasing expectations. And they had no story structure at all to provide the show with a backbone. Sadly, there was no one protecting the Addams franchise, just Marshall Brickman, who had to create a story from scratch and clearly had no director with a sense of comic structure to help him.

The comic vision in any Addams Family adaptation is the PRIMARY quality. The original cartoons were brilliant, unique and genuinely macabre. The TV series was classic camp, and the movies were giddy fun.

For Oken to fail to recognize that it was ESSENTIAL for him to hire a director who is skilled at delivering COMEDY was a stupid mistake, potentially a $16-million-dollar mistake.

I'm not surprised Chicago audiences were enthusiastic. Audiences come to material like this with their past associations to the material, WANTING to like it. A Monty Python audience wants to see the spirit of the material they love. But to succeed in New York for a long run, the show has to be as much fun as the original material or the word of mouth will not be "Oh, ya gotta see it. It's so much fun"--it will be "Nah. Never mind. It's nit as good as the movie/TV series/original."

Here's to you, Jerry. Make it fun.

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I'm glad I'm not the only one shouting in the rain here. Thank you for the elloquent backup, guys. I hope Jerry Zaks yuks the show up greatly and tightens whatever is there because this piece has a name the public recognizes and, sadly, that may make it a marked beast on Broadway.

As for The Lion King, the other salient point, frankly, is that Disney produced the show. They simply opened up Scrooge McDuck's Money Depositry (Number 6 I believe) and siphoned off a few truckfulls. It's not exactly a giant risk for them. Doing the Lion King as an independent producer would have been much more of a risk and therefore IMHO a much greater accomplishment.

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