Photo Source: Jeremy Daniel
Once it’s been established that set and costume designers Julian Crouch and Phelim McDermott can re-create the gorgeously grim look of the strip and series, we’re left with nowhere to go. Book writers Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice merely rehash some of Addams’ rampant puns and double entendres for this bizarre family obsessed with all things gothic, proving that the source material lacks the depth to translate into two acts on a stage.
The problem also appears to have flummoxed McDermott and Crouch, who are credited as the show’s original directors but are now a footnote above the final program credit: “Entire Production Under the Supervision of Jerry Zaks.” Zaks, who joined the show during its troubled pre-Broadway Chicago tryout, is a storied fixer-upper, but even he hasn’t managed to pull a rabbit out of this one-joke hat, despite several new songs and situations having been added for the tour, including making the marital crisis of Gomez and Morticia more central to the story, which originally focused on daughter Wednesday’s budding romance with a “normal” boy. Mostly, it’s to no avail. Even the kids in the audience were bored by the middle of Act 2, especially during a series of ho-hum ballads about love and family loyalty devoid of even one visual trick or puppet designed by the usually clever Basil Twist, whose work seems better suited to an intimate setting.
The actors breathe life into their well-worn roles, particularly Douglas Sills as Gomez, who possesses a spectacular singing voice and expertly draws the audience into the patriarch’s juiciest lines and reactions. Blake Hammond is the quintessential Uncle Fester, so on the money evoking the gleefully leering TV performance of Jackie Coogan that it’s uncanny. Pippa Pearthree, as Grandma, and Patrick D. Kennedy, as a Pugsley who can scream like a B-movie queen, are both perfect, as is throaty-voiced Tom Corbeil as the zombie-like servant Lurch. As Wednesday’s intended, Brian Justin Crum makes the most of a seriously underwritten part, and Martin Vidnovic is properly pompous as his father. As the Ohio mom transformed by Grandma’s potion from a syrupy housewife who loves to rap bad rhymes to a tigress on the prowl for her youth, Gaelen Gilliland brings the house down with her one solo, “Waiting.”
Unfortunately, mother and daughter Addams do not fare as well. Sara Gettelfinger appears to have been cast more for her height and cleavage than for her ability to find Morticia’s Vampira-esque qualities. She misses the character’s comedic possibilities, and her vocals are lackluster. Furthermore, although Gettelfinger’s career includes many dance performances, she clunks around as though an exaggerated pull of gravity is weighing her down, perhaps in part because of Sergio Trujillo’s consistently unimaginative choreography. As Wednesday, Cortney Wolfson is in fine voice but never goes for the overstatement that the grandly gloomy role demands.
The biggest conundrum, however, is the contribution of songwriter Andrew Lippa, whose lyrics are the best thing about the production. “Like a corpse in the ground/Or theater-in-the-round/I’m trapped,” sings Gomez, but the songs still fall flat because of Lippa’s blandly forgettable tunes.
Ultimately, “The Addams Family” is a likely candidate for premature burial.
Presented by Stuart Oken, Roy Furman, Michael Leavitt, Five Cent Productions, Stuart Ditsky/Adam Ditsky, Stephen and Mary Jo Schuler, Eva Price, James L. Nederlander, Stephanie P. McClelland, Pittsburgh CLO/Gutterman/Deitch, Vivek J. Tiwary/Jamie DeRoy/Carl Moellenberg, and Mary Lu Roffe, by special arrangement with Elephant Eye Theatrical, at the Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., L.A. June 5–17. Tue.–Thu., 7:30 p.m.; Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 and 8 p.m.; Sun., 1 and 6:30 p.m. (800) 982-2787 or www.broadwayla.org.
