BWW Reviews: Creepy and Kooky Production of THE ADDAMS FAMILY at the Fox Theatre

A lot the single panel cartoons of Charles Addams appeared in The New Yorker, and a lot them didn't feature the particular characters we know and fondly remember as the Addams Family, they just had an offbeat sense of the bizarre, and often featured completely different characters. Some are even more than one panel in length, but those are rare. I own a couple of paperbacks (Homebodies and Drawn and Quartered) that collect these memorable and macabre masterpieces, and really, only a handful have the characters we've come to know and love. And, if turning "Peanuts", a three panel strip, into a Broadway musical was a daunting task, you can imagine the dilemma faced by writers Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice. Thankfully, after much revising (a friend saw a preview in Chicago that ran over 3 hours), they seem to have got The Addams Family right, or as close to the original lunacy as one can expect.

The story is really a take off on You Can't Take it With You, with the daughter in Kaufman and Hart's masterwork replaced by groovy ghoulie Wednesday Addams. Of course, the family is much more eccentric than Kaufman and Hart's, with Gomez, Pugsley, Morticia, Grandma and Uncle Fester (not to mention Lurch) much more elaborately nutty in the darkest way possible. A bit of friction between the lead,s along with quite a bit of tightening to the script, adds the necessary bite to make this version much more successful than the one that played on Broadway.

Douglas Sills and Sara Gettelfinger make an appealing (or should it be appalling) couple as Gomez and Morticia, respectively, and handle their peculiar parental duties with considerable aplomb. Cortney Wolfson is a delight as the gothic Wednesday, and Brian Justin Crum does fine work as the "regular" guy, Lucas, she falls in love with. Patrick D. Kennedy amuses as Pugsley, and Blake Hammond gets one of the show's best numbers with "The Moon and Me" as Uncle Fester. Martin Vidnovic and Crista Moore are properly "normal" as the parents who come to dinner.

The creepy creative team of Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch (direction and set design and costumes) along with the kooky choreography of Sergio Trujillo, and the mysterious and spooky creative consultation of Jerry Zaks have brought a mixed bag to life on stage. The first act is paced well, but the second act really allows Andrew Lippa's altogether "ooky" music and lyrics to truly shine.

The Addams Family is engaging fun once it kicks into high gear, and filled with a sort of twisted and weird charm that I found thoroughly entertaining. The show continues through October 9, 2011 at the Fox Theatre.

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