The Addams Family

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In a recent post I mentioned that it was Lois’ birthday this month. The celebration continued throughout this weekend, when 11 of our closest friends from Richmond and Birmingham came to spend the weekend.

On Friday night, 13 of us went to see The Addams Family on Broadway. One of the leaders of the visitors worked some magic and got us 13 contiguous seats in the front row of the mezzanine (there are only 14 seats in the row). The seats were incredible.

As I understand it, the reviews have been less-than-kind, but the show continues to sell out and get strong word-of-mouth. I believe that only Wicked outsells Addams, and considering that Wicked is our favorite show of all time, and that we’ve seen it eight times, I don’t begrudge their continued strong sales. 😉

The only way that The Addams Family can get a poor review (in my opinion) is if your expectations are completely mismatched. If you’ve never seen (or heard of) the original TV show, or the movie versions, and you think you’re coming to see some deep drama or weighty philosophical musical, you’ll give it a low grade.

If you realize you’re coming to see a farce, based on the original premise, but updated to a more modern story (working in homages to the original throughout), then you can’t help but laugh out loud quite a number of times, and chuckle constantly the remainder of the show.

Addams moves along at a nice pace. Most of the singing is excellent. While many of the songs are funny, none are memorable musically (not really surprising). A few even feel forced, given that they likely need to have a certain number of songs to feel good about calling it a musical.

Nathan Lane is fantastic in everything he does and this is no exception. Bebe Neuwirth does a terrific job acting. While her singing was good (entirely on key), of all of the cast, her singing was the weakest and most inconsistent.

Uncle Fester (played by Kevin Chamberlin) was perfectly cast. He looks the role, sings wonderfully and delivers all of his lines deliciously.

Grandma (played by Jackie Hoffman) was also perfectly cast.

The kids were very good, the understudy who filled in for the Pugsley character that night (Matthew Gumley) and Krysta Rodriguez who plays Wednesday.

The set was highly imaginative. They represented different parts of the house by shifting around the staircases and reconfiguring them.

If you want a light-hearted night out, with a fair number of laughs, I recommend The Addams Family.