show

The Broadway show The Addams Family closed at the end of 2011, but since the movie was on TV the other day I thought that now, well into 2016, would be a good time to review the show. Also, it closed long enough ago that someone might get the bright idea to revive it any day now.

I remember fondly how, when this show was in its last season, I was subjected to repeated, almost desperate ads for it on the taxi cab screens. This was funny in a sad sort of way and made me realize two things – an ad for a Broadway show can be better than the show itself, and I take way too many cabs.

I happened to see The Addams Family (well, part of it) thanks to a free ticket from a friend, which is probably the only worthwhile way to see a live musical based on a movie series based on a TV sitcom based on a comic strip. I did not see the final version of the show starring Brooke Shields and… other people. I suppose it was her last hurrah before settling comfortably into the twilight of her career on a La-z-boy.

I wish I had seen that version instead of the one I did see – which was with the original cast starring Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth. Ms. Shields strikes me as a much better fit for a show like this as she possesses a familiar enough name to draw an audience without the staggering talent that might accompany it, thus avoiding the shattered expectations of seeing very good actors perform in a very bad musical – although there is a sadistic rubberneck thrill of witnessing the slow torture of talented people trapped onstage in a horrifically lame production with no hope of escape.

 

I will be reviewing only the second half of the show, which is mostly what I saw. Time and again, when reading Broadway reviews, I see that “after a promising start” a show “fell flat in the second act.” Like determined little trains chugging up a hillside, many productions lose their steam halfway to the top. They are the little engines that couldn’t.

With everything riding on second acts nowadays, it has become unnecessary to review first ones (unless it’s a one-act production). There’s no need to see the little engine off at the station. You need only wait at final stop the bottom of the hill to see if it arrives in one piece.

This makes life a lot simpler for theater critics. What does it matter if you’re running late and miss the opening scene? The curtain probably went up as planned. Who cares if you had a few too many last night and dozed all through the first big dance number? It was bound to have been performed energetically, compared to later numbers when the performers are all tired out. Restroom breaks are also not a problem. Spending a scene in a bathroom stall serenaded by flushing toilets instead of in the balcony serenaded by dueting lovers, you can rest assured that the pair managed to display adequate chemistry, since this is long before the end-of-the-first-act kiss  and “How could you forget to use mouthwash again!” intermission argument. And, even though the scenery may move around, it will probably repeat itself, so you won’t miss much there.

There is a wonderful, unintended, cost benefit to skipping first acts. We all know nobody checks your stub after intermission so you don’t even need a ticket to get a gander at whatever it is and give a full, accurate and insightful review, which is just what I did with the Addams Family.

To begin, let me say that the show probably opened with a promising start, but everything fell flat in second act. I must admit that I did sit through part of the first act, though not on purpose. I arrived too early and it wasn’t yet intermission. Still, by the time I got settled in my seat, and my friend and the rest of her group finished glaring at me and muttering about how they could have given the ticket to someone else if I wasn’t going to bother to show up on time, and I’d finished rifling through my Playbill and rustling around in my pockets for a mint, intermission had arrived. During this time, I was aware of a vague swirl of sound and color in the general direction of the stage, but I promise I didn’t see a thing.

 

 

Many theater critics neglect to review intermission; a key part of the overall theater experience. I think it’s crucial to know how long the line to the bathroom is, if they are likely run out of Raisinets at the bar, and if, from snippets of conversation, you can tell the audience is packed with a lot of slowpoke tourists who are going to block your way to the exit after the show and increase your wait time for a cab. I’m happy to say that at The Addams Family there were plenty of toilets in the ladies room and there was time enough to use the restroom and grab a box of candy. There was not enough time to order a drink, too (unless you were with a male companion who never has to wait for the bathroom). The crowd was a healthy mix of fast-moving natives and languishing tourists, indicating that a quick getaway might not be out of the question.

The chimes sounded, the crowd made its way back into the theater, and it was time for the all-important second act. This began with a musical number, followed by several other musical numbers. There was a fair amount of music. Sadly, I don’t remember any one tune standing out (in fact I can’t recall any of the tunes at all). The better ones were probably in the first act. From what I could gather, the silly plot involved Wednesday Addams’ plan to marry a boy from a nice, normal family and the miscalculated interference of Uncle Fester, and various ghosts and undersea monsters. Give the subject matter, the plot really couldn’t have been anything but silly. Bebe Neuwirth and Nathan Lane clearly had a tough time rising above the lackluster second-act material. Lane seemed to put somewhat more effort than Neuwirth into getting cheap laughs but that may have been due to the confinement of her skintight Morticia gown. The scenery was impressive and it moved around a lot.

The second act of the Addams Family suffered mostly from being a musical without really wonderful music, which is sort of a must-have ingredient in a musical. What it lacked in quality it tried to make up for in quantity, with quite a lot of totally mediocre and unmemorable songs. When will people learn that more of a not-good thing is not a better thing? I’m sure you know that sense of camaraderie you feel when everyone walks out at the end of a wonderfully inspiring show singing the tunes.

There was none of that at the Addams Family. Nor was there that pressing urge you feel, when you hear a great song, to run out and immediately download it to your ipod (or whatever people use these days) so you can hear it over and over again, as with those enduring Rogers and Hammerstein, Porter, or Sondheim scores, or even Annie. This was not a best-selling cast album kind of show and I felt no concern whatsoever that I might not hear any of these songs, ever again.

When the show was over the audience gave the actors a standing ovation. Standing ovations are much more deserved when fine performers make it through three hours of humiliation without suffering a nervous breakdown onstage. I never understand why we all stand up and cheer  when they’ve had an easy time of it in a great play with sharp, witty dialogue and divinely catchy musical numbers.

The curtain came down, the lights came up and it was over at last. Exiting the theater was not the log-jam it might have been, since even the tourists were grateful to see the end of the show and wanted to hightail it out of there. In fact, from the speed of the stampede you’d have thought someone was handing out hundred dollar bills to the first ten people to make it to the door.

For me, the highlight of the show was the end, not just because it was over, but because I got an awesomely cool Addams Family water bottle. A bad musical can make a good water bottle seem very exciting. Most of us don’t go to the theater often and when we treat ourselves to one of these special outings, we are determined to come away with something for our trouble.

My 4-year late review in a nutshell: great actors; lame material; mediocre songs; tolerable intermission; satisfyingly quick getaway; awesomely cool water bottle.

Until…whenever

Lazy and Hazy