All Entries in the "WORD OF MOUTH" Category
The Addams Family Musical An Entertaining Afternoon of Theatre
Catherine (me) and Rick Elice
Last weekend was a whirlwind of friends, parties, and great Broadway entertainment! AND I was able to spend some time with my favorite Broadway writer, Rick Elice. Rick is that rare breed of celebrity who is unassuming, humble and completely genuine. He is such a pleasure to know – one would never guess he has two of the top 10 shows currently running on Broadway.
While Saturday was all about Jersey Boys, Sunday was reserved for The Addams Family. I had second row center seats for the matinee – up close and personal - and I was a little bit nervous. There have been mixed reviews, not only from the critics, but from a few of the readers here on the blog, and I didn’t want to go in with any preconceptions about the show. So, I went in with an open mind, and I had a blast!
From the opening number “When You’re An Addams”, to the final curtain, I had a smile on my face and a laugh in my throat. I don’t want to get into a scene by scene analysis – that’s been done to death. I just want to share my thoughts.
Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth were wonderful as Gomez and Morticia, two parents facing what all parents face when they realize that their baby is all grown up and about to leave the nest. Of course, not all parents face it in quite the same way! Bebe was gorgeous! Her flawless skin and deadpan expression were classic Morticia. She danced beautifully, and her “Just Around The Corner” was one of my favorite numbers. Nathan definitely lived up to the hype. His comedic timing is impeccable, and he had the audience in stitches.
Kevin Chamberlin was hilarious as the “moonstruck” Uncle Fester. He really got into his oddball personae, and the audience loved him.
Jackie Hoffman as Grandma was as hysterical as everyone says. Although her role was small, she made the most of each and every line, leaving the audience doubled over in laughter. At one point during “dinner”, she was obviously ad-libbing, talking about running the mara…mara…mara..thon (NY marathon was run that day), and the cast was laughing so hard, Bebe actually had to lay her head on the table so the audience wouldn’t see. Of course, being in the second row, I could see her head shaking!
As the tormented young couple, Wednesday Addams and Lucas Beineke, Krysta Rodriguez and Wesley Taylor were fantastic. They portrayed just the right amount of teenage angst, mixed with a craziness that comes with young love. Krysta’s voice was crystal clear, with a bit of a rock edge to it, and Wesley was a perfect accompaniment. Their “Crazier Than You” was another of my favorites. I’ll be keeping an eye on their careers, I’m betting they go far.
Carollee Carmello and Terrence Mann played Alice and Mal Beineke, Lucas’s “normal” parents from Ohio. If that’s normal, I’d hate to see odd. She with her bright yellow dress and rhyming speech, and he with his tough-guy “I won’t be pushed around” act (until I meet the right squid), were very entertaining, and they played the roles to perfection.
As Lurch, the mostly silent butler, Zachary James was brilliant. And Adam Riegler was terrific as Pugsley. He had a fantastic voice for such a young age, and was very enjoyable to watch. His sadness at realizing his sister was growing up and wouldn’t be around to “play” with him much longer was very touching.
And last, but certainly by no means least, the Ancestors were all superb. Each one had his/her own personality, they danced beautifully, and the way they were utilized onstage was ingenious.
On the top of my list of ”high points” has to be the set design. Congratulations to Julian Crouch and Phelim McDermott for a tremendous job! Basil Twist’s puppetry was also spectacular, adding a layer of creativity not seen in many shows. And, as usual, Rick Elice and Marshall Brickman wrote a great story, with a perfect mix of humor, seriousness, and Charles Addams absurdity.
“Just Around The Corner” and ”Crazier Than You” were my favorite musical numbers, with “When You’re An Addams” and the tango scene following close behind. Gomez had two ballady numbers that dragged a bit (for me), but Nathan performed them beautifully. And Uncle Fester and the moon, and Mal Beineke and the squid were a bit over the top, but hey, this is the Addams Family - they are over the top!
Please bear with me while I vent….I know this is a family friendly show, and yes, they sell candy at the concession stand, but people, this is a high dollar Broadway show, not a movie theater. Please have the courtesy to NOT open loud candy wrappers, slurp noisily on lollipops, or rifle through your shopping bags in the middle of the performance (yes, I experienced all of this within two rows of me, and the perpetrators were all adults.) This is not only rude to your fellow audience members, but most especially to the cast.
I would like to say a huge thank you to the entire Addams Family ‘family’ for an exciting and entertaining afternoon of theatre!
“The Addams Family” A Critic-Proof Smash
This is a pretty long article, but it’s so good that I have to post it in it’s entirety. I found these excerpts to be of particular interest to fans of the show:
“…the musical has grossed $6.5 million in five weeks… and the producers are already planning a multicity national tour.”
“…(the) President of Group Sales Box Office, a major Broadway ticket seller, said …that “The Addams Family” remained the biggest ticket advance of any Broadway show that his company has sold this year.”
A scene from “The Addams Family,” featuring Bebe Neuwirth and Nathan Lane, which opened at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater.
Critics May Rant, but ‘Addams Family’ Rakes It In
By PATRICK HEALY, NY Times
Published: April 13, 2010
The new Broadway musical “The Addams Family” opened Thursday to the sort of scathing reviews that would bury most shows in the graveyard next to the Addamses’ forbidding mansion.
The result: The show sold $851,000 in tickets last weekend on top of a $15 million sales advance, huge figures for a new Broadway run, and all but guaranteeing that it will be hard to snag a pair of good orchestra seats until fall. After five months of well-publicized creative difficulties for the show, this seeming paradox amounts to a theater world version of the golden fleece: the critic-proof smash.
Hollywood, pop music studios and book publishers long ago mastered the art of assembling commercially successful products that critics hate. Theater is different: Only a fraction of shows turn a profit to begin with (about 30 percent on Broadway each year), and expensive tickets, fixed performance schedules and a finite potential audience for most live theater increase the importance of reviews.
Yet “The Addams Family” seems to have cracked a formula that to various degrees made long-running hits of “Jekyll & Hyde,” “Beauty and the Beast,” ”Mamma Mia!” and “Smokey Joe’s Cafe” after being dismissed by many critics. Such shows have tended to attract audiences already fond of their songs or characters.
That formula for “The Addams Family” includes a beloved brand-name title, a famous star, an inoffensive script, echoes of nostalgia and some savvy commercial judgments. The producers chose a theater with an unusually large number of orchestra seats, many of which they can sell at premium prices that top out at $300 apiece. And, in an unusual move for Broadway, they recruited five regional theaters as producing partners, spreading the financial risk while also having access to their subscribers and to those theaters for a national tour.
Kevin Chamberlin as Uncle Fester and Jackie Hoffman as Grandma performing onstage in “The Addams Family.”
While the creators promised to base the musical on Charles Addams’s mordantly sophisticated cartoons in The New Yorker, they ended up adding the theme song of the “Addams Family” television show for the audience to snap-snap along with before the curtain even goes up. In hopes of improving the show between a Chicago tryout and its Broadway run, they also added broad, sometimes goofy touches like a toupee-wearing Uncle Fester and a Grandma dressed like a Red Cross nurse — images that make some people laugh, but belie the darker spirit of the Addams cartoons for others.
The producers also built a marketing campaign that would cover all the bases, using images that would remind people of the cartoons, the television show, and the “Addams Family” movies. And the casting of Nathan Lane to play the paterfamilias Gomez, through at least next March, has been especially important to the musical’s fortunes, according to several theater producers not affiliated with the show, given that he is a popular actor with both theater- and film-goers.
“If Nathan Lane is in anything you already have my money in the till, and I imagine that there are thousands of others who feel the same,” said Michael Ritchie, artistic director of the Center Theater Group in Los Angeles, which is not associated with “The Addams Family.”
Whether the musical — which cost $16.5 million to mount on Broadway — can flourish without a well-known star like Mr. Lane is among the factors that will determine whether the show endures as critic-proof. Based on 26 major reviews for “The Addams Family,” including one in The New York Times, the theater Web site Stagegrade.com gave the show a median grade of D+. For now, however, the musical has grossed $6.5 million in five weeks — more than current hit musicals like “A Little Night Music,” “Billy Elliot,” “West Side Story” and “Wicked” did in their early weeks — and the producers are already planning a multicity national tour.
“We sought to create a musical that was not only very funny, but also surprised the audience by proving to be touching as well,” Roy Furman, one of the lead producers of the show, said in an interview by e-mail. “We are delighted that audiences have responded so strongly, as evidenced by nightly ovations, and word of mouth, which has sparked advance sales.”
Four years in the making, “The Addams Family” had a pre-Broadway tryout in Chicago last winter, drawing huge crowds but mixed reviews from critics there. Those reviews prompted Mr. Furman and the other lead producer, Stuart Oken, to hire the veteran Broadway director Jerry Zaks to take over the show from its two directors, the Broadway newcomers Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch, and ostensibly fix “The Addams Family” before opening in New York.
Critics Aren’t Raving, but Audiences Love The Addams Family!
Yes, it is every producer’s goal to win the approval of the critics, but ultimately it’s up to the “real” people, the audiences, the ticket purchasing public to make or break a show. And from what I’ve read, audiences are LOVING the kooky Addams Family musical. And at the end of the day, isn’t that what makes a successful show - audiences that walk out of the theatre smiling and humming and happy? So if the creative team of the Addams Family musical can’t rely on the critics, then it’s up to the fans to show their support through WORD OF MOUTH.
Below is the “Word of Mouth” Review from Broadway.com, where REAL people review the show.
If you’ve seen the show, or just want to offer your support of the show, please leave a comment here and let the world know how you feel about The Addams Family on Broadway. And if you have pictures you’d like to share, please e-mail them to afblog@comcast.net, and I’ll get them put up here.
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