Review: The Addams Family Musical Surprisingly Sentimental
The touring production of Broadway’s The Addams Family opened at The 5th Avenue Theatre to a warm reception and some hardy laughs. Although The Addams Family is based on a macabre cast of characters, it is far from being a dark comedy. Rather than sadistic, it is sentimental. Instead of deviant, it is hopelessly romantic. Unlike the 1993 Barry Sonnenfeld movie adaptation, this musical could aptly be titled Addams Family Values.
The only dark threat lurking in the shadows of The Addams Family musical is the threat of individuals misunderstanding how much they each love each other. Gomez Addams (Douglas Sills), the family patriarch, deeply loves his wife Morticia (Sara Gettelfinger) and his daughter Wednesday (Cortney Wolfson). Wednesday deeply loves and wants to marry her sweetheart Lucas (Curtis Holbrook). However, before Wednesday and Lucas can officially announce their intentions to marry, they both want their families to love, or at least tolerate, each other. This leads to a visit from Lucas’ loveless parents Alice (Gaelen Gilliland) and Mal (Martin Vidnovic) and to Gomez keeping a seemingly small secret that turns into one of the dominant plot points of the evening. Even Pugsley is motivated by love; the love of being tortured and the fear of losing a big sister who understands his need to be tortured. Oh yeah, and then there is Uncle Fester’s love of the moon, which leads to a very memorable and visually clever lunar love dance that must be experienced to be appreciated or even comprehended.
The anchor of this familial love fest is Douglas Sills’ portrayal of Gomez. In many ways, Gomez is the Tevya of the family; trying to lead while following the wishes of the people he loves. He even breaks into song in a way that is very similar to Tevya’s “On the other hand” contemplations. Sills’ comedic timing is impeccable. He has the biggest and the most prolonged laughs of the show that are enhanced by his ability to pause with the pace of the audience. Sills is also skilled at vacillating between authority figure and sentimental puppy. For me, the highlight of the evening was his performance of the best ballad of the show, Happy/Sad. I’m sure I will be hearing this ballad at a wedding in the near future.
Although The Addams Family is not grand theater nor overly memorable, it is still quite enjoyable with some big laughs and some genuinely sweet scenes. In The Addams Family musical, torture is more of a metaphor for the lovelorn heart than a device to harm one’s foe. If you enjoy funny love stories, you’ll have a good time. If you are looking for darker fare, you might want to visit a haunted house.
Now for the one big problem of the show, or should I say two big problems: Morticia’s cleavage. Simply put, Morticia’s plunging v-neck black dress is too, too much. Before I get thrown under the puritanical bus, I need to clarify that my complaint is purely from a functional perspective. However flattering Morticia’s dress may be to the eyes, it hinders the fluidity of almost every dance number. Although Morticia’s dress seems to be affixed to her body by some sort of epoxy adhesive, her dance choreography seems structured around limiting the possibility of her cleavage taking over the show. Consequently, Morticia’s movement appeared…..what’s a good word for this….well it appeared somewhat stilted; at least from the waist up.
I thought about standing up about half way through the show and saying, “Would someone please put a sweater on that women, I’d like to see her free to just dance.” Instead, her movement has sort of a slow river dance quality, legs moving, upper body as still as possible. Please don’t get me wrong, Sara Gettelfinger does an excellent job singing and dancing the role of Morticia, I just wish her movement had been choreographed more around Gomez than her black dress.
I may be wrong in my choreography assumptions, however, I’m sure my comments won’t hurt ticket sales. Frankly, they shouldn’t hurt tickets sales because The Addams Family is good old fashioned family fun with a slightly twisted twist. Lots of laughs, lots of love, a big heart, and an even bigger v-neck. My advice is skip the Haunted House and head to the 5th Ave for more romantic and even joyful Halloween fare.
Doug Bursch blogs at www.fairlyspiritual.org and tweets Fairlyspiritual
Douglas Bursch is the author of Posting Peace: Why Social Media Divides Us and What We Can Do About It. He also hosts The Fairly Spiritual Show podcast.