Least Favorite Characters — Page 2

VivianDarkbloom2 said: "Gussie and Curley definitely earned a spot here. Poor Jud is Dead makes Curley sound like a total sociopath. Nice observations on Morticia and Grandmama, especially when you consider how people love earlier versions of the characters. I remember sitting there wondering why Grandma was suddenly a drug-dealing hippie. Lucas and Mal also earn a spot here for being bland and adding nothing to the story. Alice ALMOST has a personality and something resembling an arc (telling everyone your creepy fetish is not an “arc”, Mal.)"

Agreed. Lucas and Mal are extremely weak roles. I considered putting Lucas in my list, but decided that while it’s a bad role, I don’t dislike it enough to give it special mention. But now that he has been mentioned, I suppose it’s the perfect time for me to map out why the part is terrible. There are a lot of bland love interests out there. But Lucas has the honor of being Wednesday Addams’ bland love interest. A huge problem in the plot of the show is that Lucas is so bland and almost completely devoid of any kind of personality. So it makes no sense that someone like Wednesday would ever have any interest in him. But not only is Wednesday interested in him, she’s apparently so head over heels about him that she’s now willing to change her appearance and interests for him. While the character acts nice enough throughout the show, there’s just nothing interesting about him to convince the audience that Wednesday would actually want to marry him. Mal is similarly terrible, in both the Broadway and Tour version. While he does have more personality than his son, his personality is just the generic jerk father. It’s sort of hard to tell if the Broadway or licensed version of the character is worse. The Broadway Mal gets to have a big number near the end, however his number is entirely based around one of the weakest plot points in the show(being raped by a squid and suddenly becoming a good guy for some reason). Meanwhile, the reworked Mal redemption scene is certainly better written from a story standpoint. However, this scene comes across as much more generic. And the tour version removes almost all of the character’s original singing, while giving him much less music in return. The lyrics to the original song In The Arms are completely nonsensical, but in my opinion, the music is actually somewhat catchy. The same can’t be said for Mal’ s reprise of Crazier Than You. The original version of the song is in my opinion, one of the weakest moments in the show’s score(I know that Wednesday might be the age of people who like pop music, but having all of her music sound like pop just feels wrong for the character), and the reprise manages to sound even weaker. So basically, Mal acts like a bland, uptight jerk throughout almost all of his stage time, except near the end where his actor’s chance to let loose is either bogged down by him having to perform a somewhat catchy, but nonsensical number that’s tied to one of the weakest moments in an already very weak plot, or a song that’s better written from a story perspective, but as a song, is practically the definition of unexceptional. Talking about the differences between the two versions, I’ll give credit to the Broadway Morticia. She’s still a horrible interpretation of a wonderful character, but she’s not as bad as the later version. Her whole self conscience about aging plot is horribly out of character for a normally strong and confidant woman. But at least that version wasn’t so horribly unsympathetic. Seriously, the current version of Morticia actually feels like the show’s antagonist. While Mal is an annoying and disapproving ass, at least he doesn’t go out of his way to intentionally harass his family or try to sabotage Wednesday and Lucas’ relationship, unlike Morticia.

Jenna in Waitress

Ogie in Waitress

Curly in Oklahoma!

Aunt Eller in Oklahoma! - The blackmail at the end of the show has always bothered me.

I agree about Curly. He's a bully and him baiting Jud to suicide has never sat well with me.

I have no idea if Mandy Gonzalez and Lexi Lawson were just very uninspiring but I didn't much like Angelica or Eliza Schuyler. They always just seemed there, at least at the performance I saw. Certainly not the intelligent, bewitching women I think LMM intended them to be and probably were/are when played by stronger actresses.

henrikegerman said: "SugarButterBroadway said: "Curly from Oklahoma - as much as I love the show, he is quite the awful person. He basically convinces a man that he would get the attention he deserves if he goes and hangs himself all in order to get a girl that keeps dismissing his advances. Jud is no prize pig himself, but Curly is pretty horrible"

Curly isn't my favorite character either, but do you really think we are supposed to take Curly's entreaties to Judd as a genuine exhortation for Judd to kill himself? As a means of actually gettting Judd to do himself in? I took it as a sardonic joke of a ribbing, "a guy thing" And motivated not so much to "get the girl" but to put Judd in his place as a brutish outsider, someone apart from the community, a pill - a theme which, as I understand it, is put in sharply critical focus in the new revival.”



That still doesn’t negate the fact that Curly is actively spelling out a fantasy where Jud kills himself. He’s obviously baiting Jud into suicide, showing him a ‘future’ where people view him as a sort of martyr. Ribbing or not, Curly can’t be that naive to believe Jud wouldn’t go through with it, seeing how calculating he is the entire show. I think that’s spelled out pretty clearly in the revival- but the lighter and cheerier tone of classic productions might mask the intention of the scene as ironic or tongue-in-cheek.

I know people are sticking to musicals, but I find the main love triangle in Rapture, Blister, Burn by Gina Gionfriddo to be distractingly unlikable. They treat their children with the emotional weight of pet fish and treat an affair like a fun fling when they're uprooting the lives of everyone around them.