Susan Granger’s review of “The Addams Family” (Lunt-Fontanne theater: 2009-2010 season)
It’s cotton candy: appetizing-looking spun sugar, soft and fluffy, sticky and sweet. While servings are large and colorful, since it’s mostly air, it dissolves quickly, offering only a fleeting, decidedly temporary satisfaction, leaving one, as Uncle Fester suggests, “feeling vaguely depressed.” So what are we to make of audiences who seem to adore this mindless drivel and fuel the thriving box-office?
Like Hollywood, Broadway has learned that nostalgic pop culture sells, particularly when the overture begins with the catchy ‘60s TV show theme song and the audience starts snapping its fingers immediately in recognition and appreciation. When the curtain goes up, revealing Charles Addams’ classic cartoon Gothic vision, set in Central Park, with Nathan Lane leading his family and ancestors from a graveyard crypt subversively singing “When You’re An Addams,” the show brims with creepy fantasy and promise.
But reality sets in all too soon with the pedestrian music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa (“The Wild Party”) and sit-com book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice (“Jersey Boys”). While the family patriarch Gomez (Lane) is having relationship issues with his wife Morticia (underutilized Bebe Neuwirth), his nubile 18 year-old daughter, Wednesday (Krysta Rodriguez), has fallen in love with and plans to marry Luke Beineke (Wesley Taylor), a ‘normal’ boy from Ohio. So when Luke’s parents (Carolee Carmello, Wesley Taylor) arrive for a get-acquainted dinner, it’s a challenge for the entire Addams clan, including young Pugsley (Adam Riegler), campy Grandma (Jackie Hoffman), oddball Uncle Fester (Kevin Chamberlain) and the butler Lurch (Zachary James).
While director/designers Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch (“Shockheaded Peter”) deliver macabre sight gags, the spooky concept is never realized, despite Jerry Zaks’ doctoring. And Serge Trujillo’s choreography can only be described as clunky. So it’s left to devilish Nathan Lane to carry the show – which he does to the very best of his ability. But Da Da Da Dum! Snap Snap! is just not enough for him to work with.