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The Broadway musical The Addams Family with music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa and book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, based upon The Addams Family characters created by Charles Addams, had a long and torturous journey to the Great White Way. Obviously, Gomez and Mortitia must have reveled in all the negative press this musical endured, first in its Chicago tryout and then on Broadway. Would they have had it any other way? Surely not! They are now laughing all the way to the bank!
The review in Variety of the Chicago tryout said, "The show [is] overcrammed and underfocused...From a structural perspective, the storytelling is all rising action followed by rapid and not really convincing resolution..."
The late author Larry Gelbart once quipped,“If Hitler’s still alive, I hope he’s out of town with a musical”
It didn't get much better for the show when it finally arrived on Broadway. The New York reviews for were mixed to negative. Ben Brantley in The New York Times wrote that it was "...a tepid goulash of vaudeville song-and-dance routines, Borscht Belt jokes, stingless sitcom zingers and homey romantic plotlines."
The original Broadway cast recording is now available on Decca Broadway. Guess what? No matter how convoluted the show may be on stage, the score by Andrew Lippa is a total delight. Listen to the disc and I guarantee you'll be howling with laughter at the moon! At first hearing, it's Lippa's incredibly funny, internal rhyming that will entertain you. Even Sondheim might be exhausted by the continuous stream of insanely humorous internal rhymes. By recording's end you will also be smiling happily at Lippa's catchy, melodic music. Yes, it's a bit derivative but in a most welcome way, there's a dash of Jerry Herman, a splash of Sondheim and even a delightful nod to the musicals of the 20's and 30's.
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My favorites? The opening number When You're An Addams, Morticia, Full Disclosure, The Moon and Me and Let's Not Talk About Anything Else But Love. Nathan Lane is as good as it gets in a musical. His fractured Spanish accent as Gomez is just too funny. When he sings Morticia, I defy you not to hear the parody of Sondheim and Bernstein's Maria from West Side Story. You don't believe me? Just wait for Lane's final notes. Lane also makes the word chocolate joyously stretch for an eternity of syllables in Let's Not Talk About Anything Else But Love.
The Addams Family opened on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on April 8, 2010. Despite all the negativity in the press, the show has become one of Broadway's biggest and brightest new hits, thanks largely to the presence of Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth as Gomez and Mortitia and all those loyal, adoring Charles Addams fans. The show has been so successful that a National Tour is scheduled to begin in September 2011 at the Mahalia Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts in New Orleans. Let's hope ASU Gammage will be hosting the Addams clan soon after.
The original cast recording on Decca Broadway is available from Amazon.Com.
Photos by Joan Marcus and graphics from top to bottom:
1. Show poster art.
2. A "family portrait" of the original Broadway cast.
3. Bebe Neuwirth as Mortitia and Nathan Lane as Gomez.
4. Kevin Chamberlin as Uncle Fester (center).
The Addams Family Official Website
Comments
I did not know The Addams Family musical is available on disc. I will have to pick it up!
Have always loved Gomez and Morticia and Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth. What a great combination! Good or bad reviews, the Addams Family will always be a favorite.
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